


On Winter's Tail

by HorseCrazyWriter76



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, But I like the idea, But we'll get there, Deceit!, Don't question how things like musicals and education systems cross over, Fluff, He doesn't show up until the end though, How do do you tag an antagonist deceit?, Hurt and comfort, I don't remember who did it, I'm bad at tagging things, I'm sure you get the idea, Joan makes a small appearance too, Logan and Patton are brothers, Logan is a deer centuar, M/M, Magic, Patton is a deer satyr, Platonic Analogical - Freeform, Platonic Logince - Freeform, Platonic Moxiety, Roman can shapeshift, Someone else did that first, Villainous Deceit, Virgil can shapeshift, Virgil is called Anx, mentioned Remy|Sleep Sanders, romantic royality - Freeform, takes a while - Freeform, unsympathetic Deceit, virgil and roman are brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2019-08-24 08:30:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 38,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16636457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HorseCrazyWriter76/pseuds/HorseCrazyWriter76
Summary: A bunch of fluffy magical antics with some actual plot and angst sprinkled in.





	1. The Spring Gala

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my very first time writing fan fiction. If you have tips, feel free to let me know!
> 
> With that said, the plot is slow to start, but we'll get there. 
> 
> For now I'm aiming for updates every Wednesday and Sunday.

April 22, 20XX

Spring is breaking in Jord, the ice breaking apart and revealing the frigid water that it housed. Buds of new growth were appearing all over the forest. For all appearances, it could have been Earth, but there were no humans planting trees for earth day or hiking out on the trails. In fact, if this were Earth, there would have been a couple of humans every square foot, for this tiny island off the mainland was where Earth’s city of New York was. No, this was not Earth. Another thing that separated this place was visible as several bits of dust gathered together and burst into flame, leaving a red and orange bird behind. The bird flew off, unharmed by its dramatic display, which certainly shook its quiet observer. The observer was what appeared to be a human child, about 12, with a baggy black sweatshirt, torn black jeans, and black sneakers. Black eyeshadow was also smeared beneath its eyes, obscuring the dark circles that already occured there due to lack of sleep. “Anx! I have been searching all over, and you’re here watching phoenixes? If you’re so obsessed with them just shift into one and see what it’s like,” a large gryphon with perfectly smooth rainbow colored feathers and light brown fur approached the small child, shifting into one of the gorgeous birds to demonstrate before shifting back into a gryphon. “You can’t make me go to the gala,” the child declared. “Is that a challenge, my dark and shadowy night?” the gryphon asked, then shifted into a tall, elegant man with rainbow hair and equally multi-colored wings before scooping the child up and carrying him bridal-style as he flew up. “Put me down!” the child kicked against the other’s embrace, then shifted into a new form. He became the size of a house cat with a bushy black tail and black ears poking up through the hoodie which also shifted to hit his new form. He looked at the other with feline eyes, then raised a hand which was akin to that of a human baby and batted at the other’s face. He didn’t put a lot of force into the blows, but the man still pushed him out away from his body, “It’s your first gala, you cannot miss it, Anx,” he said, softer now. “Yes, I can,” the other replied, finally shifting into a child with long raven wings. The pair flew side by side in silence, two shadows over the sun-kissed ground beneath them.

Meanwhile, another magical creature was sitting on the edge of the meadow, a book between his hands. He was a combination of deer and human, with a human torso emerging where a deer neck should have. A pair of deer ears emerged above his human ears, and a small set of antlers decorated his head. The antlers were small, it was to be expected. He had gotten his late, only having had spikes last year while his brother of an equal age had gotten his two years ago, at the age of 12. It didn’t matter much to the young boy, or at least, that’s what he told everyone. He ignored the taunts of the other children in school and spent his days away from others, lost in his research or a good mystery novel. He always wore a crisp black polo and a blue tie to cover his torso, and a set of black-rimmed glasses had a permanent place on his face. Some even claimed he slept in his polo, tie, and glasses, although very few actually believed the rumors. “Lolo, it’s almost time to go to the gala!” a small magical creature burst into the clearing. He was nearly all human, with the only thing deer thing about him being his impressive rack of horns and his deer legs and tail. He wore a blue polo with a cardigan wrapped around his neck, along with black-rimmed glasses identical to those of his brother’s. “I suppose I lost track of time,” the other sighed, although none of his actions betrayed any sort of surprise. “Come on! It’ll be fun,” the other said, bumping up against the other’s side. “Patton, you are aware of how I prefer to research than take part in these silly, artsy, frivolous displays,” the first one replied, tucking his book under one arm and adjusting his glasses in one fluid movement. “Just give it a chance! Besides, maybe you’ll meet a sorcerer to ask questions to for your research!” his brother squealed, dancing in a circle around the other. “Sorcerers are not frequent guests at the spring gala,” the other scoffed as they arrived at the village, “Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I must encounter a more suitable outfit, I suggest you do this, as well.”

Anx and Roman landed easily in their village square, the older of the two dragging his more reluctant brother along to their house. “Go get changed! I’m sure you’ll look fantastic, maybe almost as good as me!” the zealous brother shoved the other into his room and closed the door to his own room in a smooth whirlwind of limbs. Roman studied himself in the mirror. Even in his natural form he was beautiful, however he was a very proficient shapeshifter and didn’t mind expending a little extra energy to ensure he looked his best. He didn’t even have any clothes that he hadn’t shifted onto himself, other than several sets of pj’s so that he didn’t have to keep up his shift while asleep. He deepened his brown eyes a little bit and shifted his complexion slightly to bring out their depth and the full glory of his rainbow hair. He then shook his head and began shifting through different hair colours. No multi-colored hair was one of the weird rules of the gala. He eventually settled on purple and shifted into a white prince’s outfit with a red sash and gold embellishments. He then leaned closer and began to work on his makeup. Pink eye-shadow and a long cat-eye. He deepened the color of his lips as well, then declared it perfect. Meanwhile Anx had been sitting in the corner of his room with his back to his wall and his head in his hands. He was very weak at shape-shifting. While he could reach other forms, he always kept some sort of human aspect, and even shifting for short amount of times drained him of his energy extremely quickly. The only shift he was really good at was hiding his wings, and even then he only shrunk them enough that they easily fit under his shirt and hoodie, and he couldn’t even hold that simple of a shift for more than a couple hours at a time. He couldn’t change his physical form at all unless he wanted to pass out after 15 minutes at the gala, meaning he couldn’t summon a suitable outfit to wear. His closet was filled with band shirts and ripped black jeans, along with a couple sets of p-j’s and an extra black hoodie. He had nothing that would be acceptable at the gala. Roman knocked on the door of his little brother’s room, and, after hearing no response, let himself in. “Anx! This is not what I meant when I said ‘go get changed,’” he scolded, then riffled through his closet. “Hold on, I’ll be back with something suitable,” Roman said with an over dramatic sigh before rushing out of the door. He knew his mom had kept his gala outfits from years past, or rather, recreated them once he started summoning his outfits. He found them and riffled through them until he got to the bottom and dragged out his outfit from when he was twelve. He got his from when he was thirteen as well, for good measure. He rushed back upstairs and deposited them on the bed, “Go on,” he encouraged his younger brother, turning his back so he could keep his privacy while he changed. Eons seemed to pass before Anx finally whispered, “Okay.” Roman whirled around and studied his younger brother. His eyeshadow was running down his cheeks and his eyes were red from crying, but he tried to ignore that and study the fit of the outfit. It was plain, a white tunic with a red sash, but It fit him well enough, although it was a bit large on the tiny boy, and the low-backed cut that allowed his wings to poke out revealed his skin until his mid-back instead of neatly cupping the small, black wings. “I say we re-do your makeup. You look like a hot mess, nay, cool, nay, un-cool, and un-cool mess!” he declared. Anx gave a weak smirk and held still as his older brother wiped his ruined makeup off with one of the makeup wipes he kept sitting on a table in his room. Roman carefully applied his concealer before applying black eyeshadow above his brother’s eyes, “It’s suppose to go below my eyes, stars above, Roman, learn to read,” Anx complained, looking at his reflection. He seemed to be recovered from the panic he had felt when he didn’t have an outfit. He still didn’t like Roman’s old one, white and red totally wasn’t his aesthetic, but he supposed it was better than showing up in his usual outfit. “If you have eyeshadow under your eye, you are going with lipstick,” Roman declared. “Yes eyeshadow, no lipstick,” he protested. “Yes eyeshadow, yes lipstick,” the other replied, stars shining in his eyes. They argued for several minutes before Anx finally consented, “Yes!” Roman yelled with an elongated s, pumping his fist in the air. “Just get it over with,” he grumbled. He quickly applied purple lipstick before adding a mix of purple and red eyeshadow below his eyes, then stepped back, “Ta-da!” he declared, cleaning up his brother’s makeup table. “It’s actually not that bad. Thanks, Sir-Sing-A-Lot,” he smirked. “Ha, I like that nickname, and I’m going to use it now,” Roman said, “Now come on, the gala is waiting!” he continued, singing the last word in a voice that seemed too high to be coming out of a boy’s, let alone a bass’s mouth. “Yeesh,” Anx grumbled and stumbled after his brother.

Logan carefully put on the suit top he had from last year. It was a bit small, he would need a new one if he kept growing, but he decided it would suffice for this year. Meanwhile Patton was putting on a simple light blue gown and draping flowering vines through his horns. He topped off his look by adding blush, a touch of light grey eyeshadow, and fake freckles before painting on glittery leaves using his facepaints. He trotted to Logan’s room, knocking on the door. “You may enter,” came his brother’s muffled reply. He opened the door to see the tall deer centaur writing in his journal. He looked up, “Greetings, Patton. You look very fine,” he said, his eyes glancing over his brother’s outfit. “You too! Can I do your makeup?” he asked, bouncing on his toes. “You may do my makeup, however, do not do apply a very obvious amount, please,” Logan replied, standing and laying his pencil neatly beside his journal. Patton squealed and rushed out to get his makeup kit, returning to see his brother sitting on the floor. Logan gave a small smile at the other’s approach. “Alright, hold still!” he said, then started applying concealer before the other could even make a sound. Logan gave a small sigh of annoyance, but held still as his younger brother finished applying concealer, then added a touch of eyeliner and used a bit of dark blue eyeshadow as an accent. He finished with a coat of light lip gloss, then flipped out his mirror to show him. “This is,” Logan paused, taking in his reflection, “Adequate,” he finished quickly. “Now, hurry or we will arrive at a time unconducive to the proper respect for this occasion,” He added, standing. Patton quickly packed up his makeup kit before darting off to his room. Logan closed the door to his room and waited for his brother at the door. They chatted a bit as they trotted down the trail that would take them to the gala, with Logan becoming a tad more than mildly infuriated at all of Patton’s puns by the time they arrived at the portal.

Roman and Anx dove into the portal which would lead to the gala. The older of the two dove in first and expertly navigated to the grove where the gala always took place. The younger had been practicing portal navigation for months, but he still took a deep breath before stepping hesitantly into the dimension where portals existed. Gala, gala, gala, he chanted to himself as he rushed along with the flow of other gala-goers. Soon he found the golden opening of the gala portal, which was always specially marked for new portal-users. Anx nearly missed it even with the special marking and fell down on his exit. Roman quickly helped him up, then hooked his elbow through the other’s arm. “Just follow my lead, my chemically imbalanced romance,” he whispered and pulled them into the whirl of other magical beings. Anx kept close and said ‘sup’ whenever Roman introduced him to someone, but otherwise kept silent. For all his dark persona, the small boy was nervous and way out of his element in this whirl of wings, hooves, claws, paws, and the occasional human foot. He didn’t even get a good look at his surroundings, instead he focused on keeping up with his charismatic brother, who most definitely was in his element among the hubbub and people. He chatted with a fellow shape-shifter, then swung around to talk with a fairy, then a gryphon. Anx quickly lost track of how many people Roman had talked to, and honestly he didn’t really care. What he wanted to do was get out. Anx wanted to shoot through the portal back home. Anx wanted to collapse on the floor in his room. Anx wanted to tear off this stupid outfit. Anx wanted to rub off the stupid makeup Roman convinced him to wear until his face was raw. Anx wanted to never be in another one of these forsaken galas. Anx wanted to hide under the covers until the sun went away. Anx wanted to never leave his room again. Anx wanted. Anx wanted. Why the hell did what Anx want matter? Why did what one little, untalented shapeshifter matter? Anx nearly started laughing, self-consciousness being the only thing that kept the hysteria he felt from bubbling out and being voiced. He hadn’t even noticed he had become detached from his older brother’s side until a voice spoke to him. Directly to him, not to his brother.

“Do you require assistance? You seem overwhelmed,” the voice asked. Anx looked up to see a deer centaur standing over him. If he stood up straight, which he never did, he would have only reached his withers. He wore a black suit over his human torso and black and blue ribbons decorated his small horns. The centaur held out his hand to the small child. “Shall we move to the edge where there are fewer people?” he asked Anx, waving the hand which wasn’t extended towards the small child at the crowd around them. Logan had no real idea who the young shapeshifter was. He had seen him with another shape-shifter he had seen at past galas, and their resemblance suggested some sort of relation, perhaps brothers or cousins. It made no difference to the rational centaur, perhaps this child knew a sorcerer he could talk to. Logan knew the chance of that was minuscule, and he was really doing it just to help him. He didn’t know why, normally he simply passed by, especially in crowds like this where others were likely to aid them, although he supposed that due to the bystander effect. The point was, if his help was not necessary for the safety or wellbeing of someone, Logan normally didn’t step in(well, if they could be helped through some reasoning was another point. Helping someone emotionally was definitely outside of his area of comfort and expertise), and for some reason he had decided to help this child. Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. He was helping this child, and he might get something from it, he might not. Whatever outcome occurred would be acceptable. Anx slowly put his hand in Logan’s and let the man lead him across the dance room to a small cranny on the edge of the gala. “Thanks,” Anx said, glad to be away from all the people. “No problem. I dislike the crowds of people at the gala as well. Everyone here could be much more productive. Although, I suppose rest and social gatherings improve productivity and happiness overall, though. That aside, my name is Logan,” the centaur said, sitting down to rest his legs and so he didn’t seem so intimidating to the child. “Anx,” the other said. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Anx. Is this your first time at the gala?” he asked. Anx nodded in response, leaning against the trunk of a tree. “It is always difficult the first time you do something. Despite my appearances, this is my third time at the spring gala,” He said, adjusting his glasses, although they didn’t appear to have shifted. Anx raised his eyebrows, glancing up at the other’s decorated antlers. “I spiked two years late,” he sighed, lightly touching the edge of one antler. “Although I haven’t found need for them. Unlike full deer, we follow a courting structure more conducive to most magical societies, although bucks with large racks are considered more attractive, this is not a priority to me. I have not found a large rack necessary to succeed in my academic pursuits. In fact I am quite proficient in these pursuits. I am in classes conducive to those three years older than I am, and score higher in these classes than they do. Which of your achievements do you take the most pride in?” he rambled, then cut himself off by asking the other, who had tuned out by then and was just nodding periodically to fake listening. “Anx? I asked you a question,” Logan said, annoyed. The boy in question felt heat rise to his cheeks and hoped his foundation hid it. “Say it louder,” he masked his embarrassment with an indifferent tone. Internally Logan frothed at his tone, but he managed to rein it in before it got the best of him, barely. “I asked which of your achievements you took the most pride in,” he said, a bit of his frustration creeping out anyways. Nothing, I’m not good for anything, Anx replied in his head, “My partial cat-shift, I guess,” he shrugged instead. “May I see it?” the other asked politely. In response the other disappeared, leaving a cat with baby-human paws and a shrunken prince outfit in its place. “Fascinating. Are you able to speak in this form?” he asked, leaning towards the cat. In response the cat disappeared, leaving Anx in its place. “Better shifters are,” he shrugged. Logan continued interrogating the young child over his shifting abilities. While it certainly wasn’t an area he had planned to study, he wasn’t displeased by the way the evening went.

Patton drifted among the others, looking for people he knew from past years. Most of them were huddled in already established groups, and the young man didn’t want to disturb them. He was soon distracted by a young, and very attractive, shapeshifter holding out his hand, “Greetings, young sir! My name is Roman, and to who do I owe this pleasure?” he asked. Patton remembered seeing him a couple times at previous galas, but he was usually busy trying to get Logan to try dancing or talking to people outside of seeking people to interview or participate in a study, and the shapeshifter had never approached him. “The Patton-asure is all mine! Wow, that didn’t come off quite as well as I would have liked it to, maybe not one of my best jokes. Um, well,” the deer chimera started, and was cut off by the other’s laugh, “This is the most unique way I have been greeted, my friend. Also, this is my favorite dance, may I have it?” he asked. Poor Patton’s heart skipped a beat as his face turned bright red. He gave up on speech, instead he nodded and Roman led him onto the dance floor. They moved fluidly together, never stepping on each other’s toes, and the shapeshifter’s wings never became a problem, despite Patton never having danced with someone with wings before. Much less a very attractive young man who is probably my age and with gorgeous multi-colored wings and such deep brown eyes, and beautiful purple hair, I’ve never seen that good of a dye job, it’s just such a perfect hue to bring out his features and he’s just so perfect and graceful and handsome and good, and running out of things to say, Patton though, while the other was having similar thoughts about the deer chimera. He’s so sweet and wholesome! And he dances like he’s been doing it his whole life, and those glasses! Normally they make people look like nerds, but he manages it perfectly! And did he do those leaf decals on his cheeks? Mwah, perfect! Be still my beating heart! Was what he was specifically thinking as he lifted Patton up easily, surprised at how light the young man was. The other barely held back a squeal as he gently lifted him in an arc, then set him down as they continued to dance. The song ended far too soon for the pair’s liking, and they ended up dancing through five more songs before they finally pulled over to the buffet tables, red-faced and out of breath. The tables were about half-way filled with plates of delicacies from all over Jord. From the sugared clams of the sea people(most of whom couldn’t even attend the gala) to the wreaths of fresh prairie growth of the plains people, this place had it all. “By the horn of a unicorn, I’m starving!” Roman declared, grabbing a clean plate. “Me too! What are you getting?” Patton asked, grabbing a plate as well. “Probably the pasta with oysters,” he replied, heaping his plate full of the aforementioned dish. “Well, I’m probably going to experimint,” Patton said, grinning cheekily as he put some salad which had mint in it on his plate. Roman laughed a bit more than the joke warranted. They found a seat and spent the rest of the evening going between dancing, the buffet tables, and eating with chatting intermingled in every one of those activities.

At long last the gala started drawing to a close. People began to file towards the tall oak tree which harbored the portal they could use to get home, and some forest nymphs began to clear the tables. When the final song drew to a close, Roman and Patton finally had to bid each other goodbye. “Well, I guess I have to go find my brother. Lolo’s probably in his special little nook taking a break from looking for sorcerers,” Patton said, although his voice clearly demonstrated that he would rather keep dancing and chatting with Roman. “Would it be a bother if I came along before I sought out my own brother? If your brother is even half as charming as you are, I’m sure it’ll be a treat,” he asked, causing his companion to blush. “Of course! I should warn you, he gets a bit carried away with things, though,” he replied. “It is nothing a prince can’t handle, lead the way!” Roman smiled. Anx was curled up against the wall, entirely exhausted. Logan had wanted him to shift into practically all of his different forms, until the anxious child had finally snapped and told him to shut up before he shifted into a phoenix and burst into flames. The other had clearly wanted to say something, but ended up just muttering it under his breath, to Anx’s relief. He desperately wanted to get home and fall asleep, never mind that the latest it could be by the time they left was 2pm. “Hey Logan!” Patton said, skipping into the little nook, which also held a small shapeshifter in an outfit that bore a resemblance to Roman’s. “Who do you have with you?” he asked, peering down at the young child, who seemed to be on the verge of sleep. “Anx,” the child said, sneering at the tall man. “And I’m Patton! But everyone just calls me Dad!” he replied. “Falsehood,” Logan replied drily. “Anx-” he started. “Anx?” Roman yelled, leaping at his brother and shifting into a cat mid leap so that he wasn’t too badly affected by it. “Yeesh, affectionate much?” the child muttered as Roman turned back into a shapeshifter and climbed out of his lap. “Patton, this is my brother, the darkest little angel demon you will ever meet, and his name is Anx. Anx, this is the most precious wholesome person you will ever meet, and his name is Patton,” he chattered, causing the wholesome person in question to blush, “Aw, shucks,” he said under the other’s cry of “I have had the most enchanting idea! I must tell you all about it! But first, to the portal!” The four of them walked to the portal together, Patton and Roman chatting even more. “We simply must make plans to meet again! Me and Anx live in the Woodland Grotto, come visit us any time! Just ask anyone for me, they all know where I live,” he said in parting. “It is Anx and I,” Logan corrected him. “Oh hush, pocket protector,” Roman shot back. “We’ll see what we can do!” Patton replied, then followed Logan through the portal. Roman was next, finally followed by Anx, who, against all of his normal feelings, was actually looking forward to seeing the others again.


	2. A Long Awaited Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys get together for some games and laughs.

The days after the gala passed quickly for Anx, Roman, Logan, and Patton. Anx was trying to keep up with all his homework assignments, Roman was occupied with running meetings, Logan had made contact with a sorcerer soon after the dance and was now spending almost every waking hour talking to her through a communication portal, and Patton was busy helping pretty much everyone in his village. They hadn’t forgotten about the others, but their presence on the same astral plane sunk to the back of their minds, or at least that was the case for Logan and Anx. Roman and Patton secretly, and not so secretly, thought about each other during any moment of reprise they had, and sometimes even while they didn’t, however it was Logan who would finally make the trip to the Woodland grotto to meet with Roman and Anx once more.

Logan leafed through his notes. The sorcerer he had been talking with, Claire, had a couple meetings to attend over the next couple days, and she had told him to take a break to enjoy himself. Logan had refrained himself from pointing out that he enjoyed his research, after all teaching people and finally understanding something was the closest he had ever gotten to feeling love. He had a couple more questions he needed answers to before he could start working on compiling them into a complete study, besides the fact that he would need to be in contact with more sorcerers for it to even be considered a study, as every person was different. He sighed, adjusting his glasses. He squared up the stack of his notes and filed them away, glancing at his bookcase of novels. While he often enjoyed reading, he wasn’t quite in the mood for it that day. That was when he remembered the two shapeshifters who had invited them to visit their home, the Woodland Grotto if he remembered correctly. Patton would certainly want to come. While Logan himself hadn’t had a crush before, he had seen others at his school, and his brother, interacting enough to know when a platonic relationship was likely to develop into a romantic one. Patton had been in a total of two relationships so far, one with a boy named Remy, and one with a demiboy named Alex. He had reacted similarly to them as he had reacted to Roman, and Logan was fairly sure the shapeshifter had been lightly flirting with Patton, although whether this was from attraction or the man’s general demeanor remained yet to be seen. The deer centaur stood up and tidied his room a little bit before emerging. His parents were likely at work, so he left a short note, ‘I am going to visit some friends. Patton may accompany me. Sincerely, Logan’, and left it on the kitchen table before trotting out to see where his brother was.

He eventually found him helping an elderly human aspect deer, Tulip, plant some of her namesake flowers in her front yard. “Good morning, Tulip. Patton, I am planning on visiting Roman and Anx today. Would you like to accompany me after you finish aiding Tulip?” he asked. “Of course! I’m almost done, just have to get this last row planted,” he agreed eagerly, turning his face up to Logan. He had a bit of dirt on his nose , and his hands were caked with soil. The deer centaur sighed, “May I assist you?” he asked. “I got it, Lolo,’” the other man smiled. “I’ll meet you at the portal in 10, ok?” he added. “In fifteen minutes. You should take a moment to wash your hands before we visit,” Logan replied, “Ok! See you then!” Patton called, then bent back over his work. The deer centaur watched him for a few seconds before stotting into the thick underbrush around their village, reemerging near the fairy circle that housed their village’s portal. Patton appeared 17 minutes later, the dirt gone from his hands. “Woodland Grotto portal,” Logan reminded the other before stepping in and allowing himself to be swept along with the tide of the portal. He watched closely as the portals passed by until he saw the correct one. He caught the edge of it and took a second to gauge his angle of exit before he swam through it. He stepped through into a forest with the first blooms of new growth appearing. He frowned, he hadn’t realized the two lived in a cold climate. His deer half had long shed his winter coat in favor of a lighter one that was better fit to his home climate, and his human half was most definitely not clothed appropriately. Patton burst out of the portal less gracefully than Logan had, rolling a few seconds on the grass before sitting up and retrieving his glasses from where they had fallen. “Woah, sure is cold,” he said, shivering. “Perhaps Roman will have a jacket we are able to borrow,” Logan replied, stepping off at a smart walk. “What about Anx?” Patton asked. “He is much smaller than we are. We likely would not fit into anything he had,” the other pointed out. Patton nodded as they stepped into what appeared to be a small market place. “Oo! Look at those cat sweaters!” he squealed. “We did not bring money,” Logan pointed out, then turned to a passerby, “Excuse me, we are looking for our friends. Do you know where Roman and Anx live?” he asked. “You’re Roman’s friends? He lives just down that street, second house on the right,” the passerby, who appeared to be roughly Roman’s age replied with wide eyes. “Thank you,” Logan said, “Have a nice day!” Patton added over his shoulder as they walked across the market square. They soon found the house, and Logan knocked on the door. It was soon answered by Anx, “For the last time, we’re not interested in your cookies and Roman isn’t home!” He snapped, then shut the door in their face without really seeing who he was talking to. “Cookies?” Patton said hopefully, although internally he was disappointed Roman wasn’t home. Logan knocked again, “Did you not hear what I said?” Anx yelled without opening the door. “Anx, we are not selling cookies. Please open the door, you live in a much colder climate than we expected,” he yelled back. Anx opened the door. “There were a bunch of shape scouts trying to sell their cookies. They always asked after Roman when I open up. At least they asked after their little sales pitch,” he sighed, waving the two brothers inside.

“Where  _do_ you live?” He asked, eyeing the pair. Patton had put on the cardigan that was normally wrapped around his neck(not that Anx had ever seen him with it like that), and Logan was in a polo and tie. “Waterfall Side. It is in a subtropical climate,” he replied. It wasn’t much warmer inside than outside, but at the very least they were out of the wind. “Uh, come sit over here, I’ll get a fire going,” he said, then started to grab wood from a stack next to a brick fireplace, arranging it in a way that showed he had done this many times before. He thought for a moment before shifting into a fire sprite. The fire of his wings felt too close for comfort, and he worked on igniting the wood as quickly as he could. He leapt off the wood as soon as the fire started, shifting back into his natural form a second after he hit the ground. “Impressive. Does your DNA change during a shift?” Logan asked, watching as the child sat up and shook out his feathered wings. “What he means is thank you,” Patton said immediately after. “Uh, you’re welcome. I don’t know, Logan,” He replied. “Perhaps there is a book on it. Shapeshifters are quite a common race,” he sighed in reply, shifting as the fire warmed him. “Good evening ladies, lords, and non-binary royalty!” a griffin with rainbow colored feathers around his neck declared, kicking the door closed behind him. “By the stars, Anx, it’s not even that cold,” he said, taking in the fire. “Oh when did you two get here?” he asked, his gaze sweeping to Patton and Logan. “Hey Princey,” Anx grumbled as the griffin turned into Roman’s natural form (it was natural aside from, of course, his rainbow hair and the clothes he shifted on). “Hi Roman!” Patton grinned at the tall man. “Salutations,” Logan greeted him. “To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?” Roman asked, sitting down next to Patton. “The sorcerer I was working with had some meetings to attend, and I wanted to get out of the house. Patton was also looking forward to seeing you,” Logan replied, adjusting his glasses. “Well, what shall we do today? I recently received the latest game for the PortalIcon2, the Evil Within 2,” Roman suggested. “That is a horror game,” Logan pointed out, “I’m out,” Anx said, half-extending his wings. “I’ll play!” Patton said, although he normally didn’t enjoy horror games, and he had several nightmares the last time he had played a horror game, and that probably had worse graphics. He shook those thoughts away as Logan nodded his assent to playing. “Everyone else agreed to it, come on Anx,” Roman pushed, nudging his back with one wing. “That is a method of persuasion known as-” Logan started, “It’ll be fun,” Roman cut him off, nudging him again. “Fine, but if I get nightmares, you have to keep your hair brown for a week,” he threatened. His brother made a series of annoyed sounds, then sighed, “Fine,” he groaned, “Come on everybody!” he added in a much more upbeat tone, leading the way up a set of stairs tucked into the corner of the house. They followed him up into what seemed to be an attic space. It had a sloped ceiling and was littered with colorful rugs. A display portal hung in front of them, which sprung to life as they came in. Roman dug around in the two plastic bins stacked next to the portal for a moment before laying a controller and a game disc on the floor. He hurled the game disc into the portal, where it hung a moment before sliding into the side of the portal. The game’s loading the screen popped up. “Let us vanquish this evil!” Roman announced, grabbing the controller to take the first turn. The four took turns playing, although Anx mostly watched and let the other three play, adding witty commentary and screams whenever he saw fit(or was so scared he was surprised the others weren’t screaming).Eventually Logan said he and Patton should go back home, which was followed by another five minutes of Patton and Roman fooling around in the game while Logan watched with a quickly growing sense of frustration and Anx watched with a growing sense of amusement. Eventually Logan snapped and they finally saved the game followed by a promise to meet up and continue playing later. Everyone went to their respective homes and beds, ready for sleep, and if two of them had nightmares and one had brown hair the next time the four met up, no one mentioned it.


	3. Math and Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of brotherly bonding and antics from Roman and Virgil/Anx, as well as a touch of analogical building up.
> 
> Oh, hey, here's the first bit of angst I was talking about. Still not too bad. Still haven't introduced the main plot. Shh.
> 
> There is a panic attack in this chapter! To skip over it, don't read the third paragraph.

A few weeks went by. They had met up a couple more times to continue playing the Evil Within 2(Anx continued to make Roman keep his hair a certain color for a week to get him to play every time), but other than that the four might as well have been on different planets. Logan was spending all of his free time compiling all of his notes into a report. He had become so engrossed in his work that he had begun setting alarms to remind himself to eat, sleep, shower, go to school, and generally take care of himself. Anx was in a similar state, only he didn’t set alarms to make sure he took care of himself and he may or may not have pulled a couple all-nighters studying intensely for his end of year exams. Roman was spending almost all his time training for the final track meets or rehearsing for the play his school was putting on at the end of the year, and Patton was being the helpful little guy that he was, spreading himself thin with the amount of tasks he took on for other people. None of the boys were doing anything more than the bare minimum to keep up their health, and, as already established, sometimes not even that. 

Anx stared down at one of the math problems his teacher had given his class for review materials. His math test was two days away, leaving the already anxious boy in a state of constant near-panic. The problem was on compound interest, which he had the formula for  
(P=A(1+r)t), and he had filled in all the variables, but none of the answer choices remotely matched the number he had gotten. He stared at his work, had he done something stupid? Maybe he had plugged the numbers in to the equation in the wrong order. He checked, no, they were the right numbers. Maybe he had missed a button while punching them into the calculator? He punched in each part of the equation again, and he still got the same number. Stars, what was he doing wrong? 

He did everything again, then again, his stress building until he could barely see is work through the tears in his eyes and he was barely breathing(although he didn’t notice that part). His pencil shook, and his thoughts raced in circles around his head. I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail. “Anx! Have you seen my sword? I’m going to be late for my rehearsal,” Roman yelled from downstairs. Anx barely registered that he had said something, let alone that the words were directed at him or what those words were. “Anx, can you hear me?” he yelled again, coming up the stairs. “Anx, I know you’re in there!” he yelled, banging on his door. “I swear, you are being even more of a nuisance than normal,” he grumbled, throwing open the door and sweeping his eyes across the room for his sword. “Your room is a mess, do you ever pick up in here?” he added, stepping inside. At last his eyes caught on his younger brother, who had gathered all roughly 5 feet of him onto his desk chair with his wings wrapped around his legs. “Oh, Anx,” he said softly, stepping over a pile of dirty clothes to get to him. He crouched next to him. “What was that rythm, 6-7-8, right? Better than nothing,” he muttered to himself. “Anx, breathe for me,” he said, laying a hand on is shoulder and gently shaking him. Anx looked at him, his eyeshadow was smeared down his cheeks and his eyes were red. “In, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, hold, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, out, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,” he started, making his voice calm and steady. 

He continued to count the rhythm until Anx shook out his wings, gently knocking Roman’s hand off of his arm. He wiped his face off on his sleeve, looking over at his older brother. “Aren’t you still supposed to have black hair?” he asked, a tiny smirk making its way onto his face. “Well isn’t that a great way to greet your brother? No ‘hey, thanks for helping me get out of a mental break down’, besides, I need it red for my part in theater and the latest agreement wore off yesterday, J. D-lightful,” he sniffed. “It’s called a panic attack, Romano,” Anx shot back. “Well, I’m glad you’re alright. Now, have you seen my sword?” he asked. “Why would I have your sword?” he asked. “I don’t know! You’re the last suspect in the great sword mystery of 20XX,” he replied. “Third pile on your left,” he replied. “What the stars, Anx! You’ll pay for this!” he yelled, quickly finding his sword and running out of the room before his younger brother could reply. 

Anx turned back to his review problem and buried his face in his hands. “This isn’t helping,” he muttered. His quibling, Joan, could probably help him, but they were finishing a school project(and probably messing around) at a classmate’s house, and his parents were both at work. It was his last review problem, too. He paced his room, stepping over the piles of dirty clothes without really registering their existence. He didn’t have many friends, in fact his friend count, outside of family, totalled to two, if he was even close enough with Logan and Patton to be considered their friend. Logan. He could probably help him with the problem. He seemed smart enough, and hadn’t he mentiooned he was super ahead in school? The only question was whether or not he was available, and whether Anx could successfully open a communication portal to him. Ok, he wouldn’t actually be the one opening the portal, and he did have Logan’s portal id programmed into his IPortal, but making a communication portal was stressful. He paced a for a little bit longer before finally opening up his IPortal. He waited with his finger poised over the button for a good thirty seconds before finally taking the plunge and hitting it. Half a second later the portal opened on Logan, who glared at Anx. He nearly closed the connection, it clearly wasn’t a good time, but a buzzer went off. The deer centaur rushed to silence it, giving a short sigh. “My apologies, Anx, could you wait for about a minute while I retrieve a light snack from my kitchen?” he asked. Anx nodded and watched as Logan moved off screen. He soon returned with an apple in one hand and a glass of water in the other. “Why have you contacted me?” he asked, then took a bite of his apple. The other nearly froze up again, “My teacher didn’t explain a concept clearly and I figured you’d know about it,” he replied, forcing indifference into his voice. Logan nodded, “What is the information you are given?” he asked, setting his apple down and pulling a piece of paper and pen from a neat stack on his desk. He jotted down the problem and was silent for a bit longer as he figured out the problem. His answer matched B, but instead of telling him, he turned to the younger boy and asked “How did you solve the problem?” He had Anx walk him through each step, “You multiplied r+1 by t instead of raising r+1 to the power of t,” he said after a few seconds of silence. Anx looked down at his work again, sure enough, that was all that had happened. “Thanks,” he said. “No problem, Anx,” Logan replied. “Is there anything else you would like my assistance on?” he asked. “No, bye,” he said. “Goodbye,” he said, closing the portal. Anx took a deep breath, that wasn’t so bad, he told himself and pulled out his notes to continued brushing up, not so bad at all.


	4. Onsies and Sleepovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys get together for an unplanned sleepover, and, what's this? A tiny bit of not-that-noticeable plot?!
> 
> Also, I drew a thing: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/460906589713334275/514970354456723488/On_Winters_Tail.png

Patton swung his hand in the direction of the beeping noise that was disrupting his sleep. His hand eventually landed on his alarm clock, plunging the room back into silence. He snuggled down under his blanket again, closing his eyes and allowing himself to be reclaimed by sleep again. About five minutes later the beeping noise returned, and finally succeeded in getting him out of bed. He checked the time and his schedule, he had 15 minutes before he had to be at school. He tugged on his clothes and trotted to the kitchen, where Logan was finishing his breakfast of toast with jam while scanning a new report one of his fellow students(or ‘colleagues’ as he liked to call them) had recently sent him for proofreading. Logan didn’t have many friends, but he maintained a small network of people who had similar interests, who, if not friends, at least provided the studious young man with social interaction and companions for debate. Patton poured himself a bowl of cereal and began to eat hurriedly, nearly splashing some milk onto his blue polo. “Slow down, Patton,” his brother said without looking up. The other obeyed, although he still rushed through his breakfast in order to finish in time for school. The pair walked to school together. They chatted a bit, however the walk was short, all to short for Patton, who wanted to tell Logan some new dad jokes he had come up with. He told himself he could tell them to his friends in his other classes and tell them to Logan on the walk home. “I will see you after school, Patton,” Logan said, then took a turn to go to his first class. Patton’s first class was further down the hallway in front of them. “See you, Lolo!” he called, waving at him over the other student’s heads. Both of them maneuvered their way through the sea of students until they got to their respective classes, history for Logan and art for Patton. Patton immediately began chatting with some of his table mates, while Logan set out his school supplies and waited for class to start. The day passed by swiftly for both of them. Logan got a chance to talk to his magical sciences teacher about the report he was doing, and Patton had gotten more than a couple suppressed chuckles at his dad jokes. Over all both of them had a good day, and were eager to talk to the other about it.

“Hey, Logan! Do you know why flamingos sleep with one leg up?” Patton asked as soon as he met up with Logan after school. “Oh! It’s a fascinating adaptation. In order to preserve body heat they-” he began, “Because if they slept with both legs up they would fall over!” he cut him off, grinning. “But that isn’t the reason,” Logan said, “Also, do you know how birds fly in a v formation and a lot of the time one side is longer than the other, do you know why that is?” he continued. “Possibly an evolutionary adaptation,” he said, already knowing Patton wouldn’t listen to whatever he said on the subject. “Cause there are more birds on that side!” his brother finished, laughing at his own joke. “Patton, please stop,” Logan said, clenching his teeth to keep him from completely snapping at his brother. “You don’t like my jokes?” he asked, turning to him with wide eyes. “I do not enjoy most humour,” he replied simply. “Ok. How was your day?” Patton asked, fixing a smile into place. “My day was satisfactory. I had the chance to talk to my magical sciences teacher about my report. She is quite proud of the work I have been doing and the progress I have been making. How was your day?” Logan replied. “It was good! Today we got to use some watercolors in art, it was so fun!” he replied, “One might even say,” Patton began, getting a mischievous smile on his face that told Logan he was about to make a pun. “A wash of fun!” he finished, grinning at his brother. He groaned to hide the small smile that was trying to find its way onto his face. They soon arrived at their house and parted ways. Logan went upstairs to do his homework and continue working on is report, and Patton dropped his stuff off in his room before making his way over to one of his friend's house to help them organize their room. Sure, he wasn’t the best at organization himself, but he still jumped at the opportunity to help his friend.

The next day, Patton grinned as he saw that day on his calendar was marked ‘Time to vanquish evil!’ The school day seemed to drag on forever for him, and he ran home as soon as the final bell rang. He ran in a circle to keep himself from running into the front door as Logan jumped over a bush in their front yard. “You’re more excited than normal today. I suppose you are looking forward to meeting up with Roman and Anx again,” he commented, opening the front door. “You bet I am!” he replied, rushing in to dump his school stuff in his room. His brother gave a small shake of his head and set his stuff down on his desk. While he normally would have completed it directly after school when the new material was freshest in his mind, and when he would have time to look for an answer if one of the questions didn’t make sense(although that was rare), Patton seemed so excited, and they didn’t have school for another two days, anyways. He followed his brother towards the portal, ducking into it a second after him. They soon arrived at the Woodland Grotto, and they paused beneath the shelter of the portal structure. Beyond it sleet was coming down by the bucket fulls. Logan paused, it was late spring, not fall or winter. The weather had been cold but tolerable the last several times the brothers had gone to Roman and Anx’s house. “Let’s make a run for it!” Patton yelled, darting out into the sleet. “This isn’t a good idea!” he yelled in reply, but galloped out to catch up to him nonetheless. The cold and sleet bit into his skin, and he swore he could feel balls of ice forming in his hooves. He soon caught up to Patton and grabbed his arm, dragging him down the street to their friends’ house. Both of them were shaking uncontrollably, and Logan raised his arm to bang on the door. Roman opened it. “By the horn of a unicorn! Get in here before you freeze to death. Anx! Put more wood on the fire!” he said, directing the last bit at his younger brother, who was spreading his wings to the fire. He looked over at Roman’s cry and saw the two ice covered brothers. “You two are crazy!” He yelled, throwing another log into the fire. “The decision to walk over in the sleet was Patton’s. Thank you for the fire,” Logan said, as he sat near the fire. Patton nodded his thanks as he took a place next to Logan. 

“I have been working on an incredible, amazing, epic surprise! And Patton helped a tiny bit too, I guess,” Roman declared about 5 seconds later, with the last part added in what could pass as a normal speaking voice. Patton nodded eagerly. Logan was confused, he wasn’t aware of them working on something, but he dismissed it. Afterall, he spent most of his time working, and Patton didn’t have an obligation to tell him everything. “Could your surprise wait until after we warm up?” Logan asked. “Yeah, Princey, they’re still half frozen,” Anx smirked. “I know! It will help them warm up,” Roman huffed. “I shall venture to my room to retrieve them!” he added, shifting into a fairy with rainbow colored wings and darting down the hallway. Logan raised an eyebrow, but stayed put. Roman(in his natural form)came back down the hallway a few seconds later in a tiger onesie and with a small stack of clothes in his arms. Patton squealed in excitement as Roman tossed him a dark grey cat onsie. “Where’s the restroom?” he asked, “First door on your left,” Anx said, and Patton quickly rushed off. He soon returned dressed in the cat onsie. “Logan, are you ready for yours?” he asked with mock gravity. “Really? Well, as I’ll ever,” he sighed. “Oh don’t you sweat it!” he said as Roman tossed Logan a unicorn onsie. He stared at it, “While it is rather well made, it did not have to be a onsie, let alone a unicorn onsie,” he eventually sighed. “Come on, Logan! Try it on!” Patton urged. Logan sighed and walked to the restroom. He soon returned in the unicorn onsie, although he had tied his tie above the garment. “How did you figure out the sizing on this?” he asked, sitting down again. It was a touch too small, but it clearly hadn’t been made through guesswork. “I got some of your blankets and shirts from last year down from the attic,” Patton replied. “That is actually quite clever, Patton,” he replied. “Anx! Your turn!” Roman sang, tossing the final onsie at his younger brother. Anx held it up, “Is this revenge for me stealing your sword?” he finally asked. “No, I’m still working on how to pay you back for that,” Roman replied. Anx rolled his eyes and trudged down the hallway. When he returned, he had changed into the bat onsie, “This is actually pretty chill,” he said, stretching out beside the fire. They spent a few more minutes chatting and warming up by the fire before heading upstairs to continue playing The Evil Within 2.

By the time they finished, the sleet was still coming down with the same strength. “I do not believe it is safe for Patton and I to return home in this weather. Is it acceptable if we stay here until the sleet stops?” Logan asked. “I do believe we can make that work! Epic sleepover, start!” Roman yelled, racing downstairs. “Excellent. Please excuse me while I alert Patton and my parents about our whereabouts,” he said, pulling out his IPortal. “I better go stop Roman from raiding all my pillows for you two,” Anx said, as he walked downstairs. “I’m going to go see if I can help!” Patton said before following Anx. Logan quickly talked to his parents, then walked downstairs to see how he could assist. He found Anx and Roman arguing about how many blankets the deer brothers needed. Patton was nowhere in sight. “We do not need many blankets. The onsies you crafted are quite warm,” Logan said. “Told you,” Anx shot at his brother. “That doesn’t mean they only need two blankets each!” Roman argued. “Two blankets is plenty,” Logan sighed. Anx shot Roman a triumphant look before Roman huffed and trudged out of the room. “Do you know where Patton is?” Logan asked after a moment. “Last I checked he was in the kitchen trying to figure out if he had the ingredients for cupcakes,” he replied. “I will go ensure he does not burn your house down,” Logan sighed, trotting out of the door to find his brother.

He quickly found Patton, who was gathering a bunch of ingredients together on the counter next to a cook book, which was opened to a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. “Patton, this is not our house,” he said, looking down at the pile of ingredients. “Roman said I could help myself to anything in the kitchen,” he replied, pulling out a huge tub of flour. Logan sighed and looked down at the recipe to make sure his brother was actually getting the correct ingredients out. “That is baking powder, not baking soda,” he pointed out. “Silly me!” Patton chimed, switching it out for the correct ingredient. About half an hour later Logan pulled out the tray of only slightly burnt cookies. “Something smells good,” Anx commented, coming into the kitchen. “Careful, kiddo! They still need to cool,” Patton said, bouncing on his hooves. “Well, Roman’s finally satisfied with how he set up the beds,” Anx commented, leaning against the counter. “Let’s go see!” Patton said, trotting out past the half-wall divider to the living room. Roman had set up four mattresses in a semi-circle around the fireplace, and each of the mattresses had four pillows and three blankets. “Patton, you have arrived! I am sure you will find your accommodations most satisfactory,” Roman said, gesturing to the semicircle of beds. Patton immediately jumped on one of the inner beds, “They’re bouncy,” he whispered, his eyes full of excitement. “Only the best, compadre,” Roman replied. A couple seconds later Anx and Logan looked over to see the pair bouncing between the two rightmost beds, giggling like children. “I suppose that leaves the two beds closest to us as ours,” Logan sighed, adjusting his glasses. “How childish,” he added with disdain. “I dunno, kinda looks fun,” Anx said, “You don’t mean to suggest-” he started, “Oh yes I do!” Anx yelled, jumping on the other inner bed. Logan stared at them. “Do not jump on my bed,” he warned them with a sigh before heading back to see how the cookies were cooling. He watched them from the kitchen, and a bit of warmth spread through him despite his insistence on a completely rational image. 

“The cookies are cooled!” Logan called after a few minutes, which summoned the other three to the kitchen immediately. They gathered all the cookies onto a plate and brought it over to the beds. They each sat on a bed and chatted between, or around, bites of cookie. Logan and Patton weren’t the best cooks on Jord, but no one commented when they found a bit of fur or a burnt part on their cookie. Somehow they decided on playing truth or dare, and Patton claimed the first turn. “I’m ready, go ahead,” Roman said, fanning his wings. “Logan! Truth or dare?” he asked. “Come again?” Roman said under his breath. “Truth,” Logan sighed. “Do you love us?” he asked. “In a platonic sense, yes,” the deer centaur replied. “I’m ready!” Roman declared as Logan prepared to take his turn. “Anx, truth or dare,” he continued. “Dare,” he replied. “I dare you to shift into your favorite animal,” he replied. “Just hurry up so we can move on,” Roman muttered, as Anx paused for a moment before a tiny bat took his place. He quickly shifted back into his natural form before the others could get a good look at him. “Next one!” Roman said eagerly. “Patton, truth or dare?” Anx asked. “Mother f-!” Roman started, cutting himself off as Patton chimed “Father! Now you,” and pointed to Logan. “Brother. I love word association games,” he replied. “Patton, truth or dare,” Anx asked again. “Uh, dare!” he replied. “I dare you to say you love us,” he said, although he knew it wouldn’t be hard for the positive and loving young man. “I love you all so much! If I could give you all butterfly kisses, do you know what those are? With the eyelashes? You make my life complete!” Patton replied eagerly. “Anx! Truth or dare?” Roman jumped on his turn. “Truth,” Anx quickly declared. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Panic! At the Everywhere?” he complained. “It ran away when you asked me truth or dare,” he shot back. Roman waited for a second, and his face scrunched in concentration as he struggled to think of a suitably embarrassing question to ask his brother. Mischief lit a fire in his eyes, and Anx immediately felt the drag of a dread, which was not misplaced. “Who do you like most out of all of us?” he asked. There was a half a second of pause, “You can’t ask that,” Logan pointed out. “Who says?” Roman replied snottily. “The rules of truth or dare are that, when you are asked truth or dare, you may choose whether to complete a dare or honestly answer a yes or no question,” he replied. Anx’s dread evaporated, and he sent Logan a look of thanks, although he didn’t see it. “Fine,” Roman pouted, “Did you like the gala?” he asked. “A bit,” he shrugged in return. Of course, he had spent all of his time at the gala either glued to Roman’s side or hidden from the crowd of people with Logan, but it hadn’t been awful, all things considered. The four continued to play truth or dare, each of them slowly succumbing to sleep. Logan was the first, and the only one who willingly went to bed instead of simply becoming too tired to stay awake. Roman went next, then Patton. Anx laid down on his bed. Roman was snoring loudly, and he was surprised Patton had managed to fall asleep, after all he was even closer to Roman than Anx was. He stared up at the ceiling, and waited for sleep to claim him. It took a long time, but eventually he fell asleep.

Anx’s rest didn’t last long. He woke to a series of whimpers next to him. He looked over to see Patton curled into a ball. His face was scrunched up in what he could only assume to be some kind of combination of fear and pain. He looked around to see if Logan or Roman had woken up, but they were out cold. He supposed the whimpers weren’t really that loud, and he knew Roman was a very sound sleeper. He looked down at Patton again. He was clearly in the middle of a nightmare, but, despite having had several before, Anx didn’t really know what to do. He froze in indecision. He didn’t want to leave his friend going through a nightmare, but he really, really didn’t know how to comfort someone. He finally gently nudged Patton, “Pat, wake up,” he whispered, and nudged him again. Patton opened his eyes, although he couldn’t see very well in the dark, the fire had long burnt out, and without his glasses. He faintly made out the outline of Anx, although in his half-asleep state he thought he was Logan. He sat up and hugged him. Of all the things Anx was expecting, this was definitely not one of them. He sat awkwardly as Patton calmed down. “You ok?” Anx finally asked. “Yeah, thanks, Lolo,” Patton replied, then his fingers brushed one of Anx’s wings. “Roman?” he asked. “Anx,” he corrected in the quietest voice possible. “Sorry, it’s just, really dark in here. I would have made a pun about it, but it was a bit shady,” he replied, finally releasing the other from his hug. “No problem, Pat,” Anx replied, “Now get some sleep, don’t let your old man keep you up!” Patton whispered. A few seconds later he was falling back asleep. Anx admired his ability to fall asleep like that. He eventually fell asleep again, but morning came far too soon.

“We did not have a proper dinner last night, so we should have a nutritious breakfast today,” Logan argued, as Roman started scrounging around the kitchen for the cold waffles he could have sworn were in the pantry. Anx leaned against the counter with his hands wrapped around a cup of something steaming. “Don’t make me throw this on you. It’s too early for this,” he grumbled, and took a sip of the steaming liquid. Patton was somehow still asleep in the living room. Roman finally pulled out a tupperware of waffles. “Are you even listening to me, Roman? It’s not healthy, and we didn’t even have a proper dinner last night,” Logan snorted, looking down at the shapeshifter. “Yawn, Logan. Uber yawn,” he replied, laying out the waffles on a plate before he shifted in to a small horse with a fiery mane and tail. Logan continued to scold the horse, but he didn’t get any result. Roman finally shifted back, “Waffles are ready!” he declared. “May I at least have some fruit and nuts?” Logan practically growled, as Anx took a couple of the warm waffles, and Patton conveniently woke up. “Go right ahead, Nerd,” he sneered in return. “Roman! Don’t be rude,” Patton scolded him around a mouthful of waffle. “Logan just doesn’t realize it wouldn’t hurt him to live a little,” he replied. “I am alive and listening to you at this moment,” the deer centaur, who had located a wallfruit(a fruit that grew on a vine and was similar to an apple) and a small bin of mixed nuts, retorted. “Just because you’re alive doesn’t mean you’re living!” Roman shot back. “Yes, it does. Alive and living are synonymous,” he replied. “Guys, does it really matter? Besides, these waffles are going to get cold if we don’t eat them soon,” Patton pleaded, looking up at them with puppy eyes. “I suppose Patton is right,” Roman sighed, sinking in to a chair to eat. Logan just sighed and stood next to the table to eat. They finished quickly and, after Logan had changed back in to his normal outfit and convinced Patton to do the same, said their goodbyes. The deer brothers headed back to their village, although they did notice it was much cooler they expected, they brushed it off as a cold front and continued to chat as they finally made it back to their home.


	5. Migration and Heroics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have some more fluff and a little bit of Anx angst.

“Patton, we both know I am faster than you are by a large margin simply because of my deer half,” Logan sighed as his brother tried to convince him to race him across the green. They were moving to their village’s summer home, where water was more plentiful, and Patton was trying to occupy the long walk with races. “Please?” he asked, walking backwards so that his brother could see his puppy eyes. “I suppose it will not hurt,” he sighed. “Yay! To the next island, ok?” he replied happily, and pointed to the next island. “Ok. On my mark, get ready, go,” Logan breathed. He broke into a light canter and easily outpaced his much shorter brother. “You weren’t even trying,” Patton complained as he arrived on the island, trying to catch his breath between his words. “If I wasn’t trying I would still be walking next to the others,” he replied, slowly leading the way back to the rest of their neighbors, as his brother caught his breath. “I wish I was faster,” he lamented, still trying to catch his breath. “You are much faster than many people of your species distribution and height,” Logan pointed out. “I know. Hey, how’s your research going? Have you made any  _ key  _ discoveries yet?” Patton asked, smiling cheekily. His brother sighed, “Did you just make a reference to the fact these islands are referred to as the keys?” he asked. The other’s smile was enough to answer his question. “In regards to how my research is going, it is going well. I am surprised no one has done more studies on sorcerers, because there are many fascinating things about their magic,” Logan replied. He continued to talk about his research, and Patton nodded along. He wasn’t really that interested in what Logan was talking about, but he didn’t want to tell him that. Besides, he liked seeing the way a little light lit in Logan’s eyes whenever he talked about something he was really interested in.

It wasn’t long before they crossed the last salty shallow to the Gathering Island. The Aspen Island village had already arrived and was settling in to the houses they always occupied. Waterfall Side and Aspen Island were almost always the first villages to arrive, being the closest to the Gathering Island. Everyone from Waterfall Side quickly made their way to the series of pools fed by a natural spring that served as their source of fresh water during the dry summer months. As soon as they had quenched their thirst, they began to settle in to the series of shacks and lean-tos that would serve as their homes until the rainy season returned in fall. “We forgot to alert Roman and Anx that we will not have easy access to a portal for some time,” Logan realized as he began to unpack his backpack. The brothers froze mid movement to look at each other, “And we were supposed to meet up again today,” Patton whispered. Logan sighed and adjusted his glasses. “We should finish unpacking, then see if we are able to establish a communication portal to either of them,” he finally said and set the blanket he was carrying down. “Okie dokie!” he sang in response and continued to help unpack, although both boys secretly worried about how Roman and Anx would react. 

“Maybe they’re just running late,” Roman said, peeking out the window again to check for the deer brothers. “They were supposed to be here an hour ago, and they’ve never been late before!” Anx shot back, pacing from the kitchen to the living room, then back again. His wings twitched in agitation, and even Roman couldn’t help but admit the fact they hadn’t shown up yet was worrisome.  _ We were awful friends at the sleepover. Logan probably realized that and convinced Patton that they were better off without us. He’s probably right,  _ Anx’s thoughts ran in ever tightening circles of panic and self-deprecation. “There has to be something we can do,” he muttered. His sneakers let out a squeal of protest as he pivoted to walk back to the kitchen.  _ Step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, squeal, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, squeal,  _ “Let’s go save them!” Roman suddenly yelled and drew his sword (he had kept it on him ever since he had found it in Anx’s room. He was still thinking of an appropriate way to get back at his younger brother for that). He ran out of the house towards the portal, and Anx pounded after him, thinking,  _ this is a bad idea, why are we doing this, this is a bad idea, why are we doing this. _

The two shapeshifters stumbled out of the portal. They had visited Patton and Logan a few times before, and it had always been much calmer than their own village, but it had never been empty. A bird fluttered away at their arrival, and the wind sent the boughs of the trees swinging, but there were no deer people in sight. An egret aspect bobcat ran past the clearing, using its wings to propel it faster past the two shapeshifters. Roman moved slowly towards their friends’ house, closely followed by a very jumpy Anx. Roman knocked on the door, but there was no response. He tried again and got a similar response. He slowly opened the door, finding it unlocked. Inside was empty of the normal controlled mess in the front room. “Patton? Logan? Is anyone home?” Roman called out, pushing as much confidence into as voice as possible, with no response. “This is a bad idea,” Anx whispered. “Nonsense! They need us, and we’re going to save them,” he replied, moving into the kitchen. There was no food, and most of the other things that should be present in the other rooms, like journals, pencils, clothes, blankets, and pillows, weren’t there. Anx nearly chuckled at the small post-it note stuck to the wall in what had to be Logan’s room. All the other post-its had small reminders or notes, but this one said ‘Never trust an atom. They make up everything.’ They left the house and closed the door behind them. They peeked into the window of the next house over, but it seemed to be in a similar state of abandonment. “Whoever took these innocent souls will pay for this!” Roman yelled, waving his sword at the sky.  _ It looks more like a mass migration than a massacre,  _ Anx thought, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

“We’re too far away from a magic channel,” Logan said, walking around the edge of the island and looking down at his IPortal. “Can’t you try again?” Patton pleaded. “I am still trying,” he replied, as he began another circuit around the island. Two circuits later and Logan refused to keep walking around. “We can try again tomorrow on one of the nearby islands. It’s getting late, and we have been walking all day. We should eat and get some rest,” he told Patton. As much as Patton wanted to keep going, he had to agree. He tried to push away his worry by telling extra jokes as everyone ate and the last few villages arrived at the Gathering Island, but it didn’t quite work.

“We need sleep,” Anx finally spoke up as Roman faltered in his flight. “Nonsense, sleep is for the weak!” he declared, steadying his flight path. They had been spiraling out from the village for hours looking for the missing deer people, but so far they had only seen one unabandoned village, and a lower flight path revealed no deer that the brothers recognized. “We won’t be able to see much soon,” he argued, to which Roman replied by shifting into a bat aspect goat with rainbow fur. “Why a goat and a bat of all things?” Anx muttered, then began to struggle to turn the area around his eyes into a cat’s so he could keep a look out. “Because goats have an underappreciated singing voice, too,” Roman replied as Anx successfully managed to get his cat eyes in to place. Or not so into place. Somehow he had managed to shift them in to his forehead, but he just closed his human eyes and concentrated on the ground rushing beneath him and maintaining his shift. Both of them began to falter quickly from holding the shifts and all the flying. Anx’s shift was the first to go, and was soon followed by him plummeting towards the ground. He screamed and tried to get his wings to function, adrenaline finally saving him a couple feet above a tree. He slowly drifted down into it, and sighed from relief and exhaustion. Roman, in his natural form, soon joined him on the branch. “Fine, we can sleep, but we’re going back to saving them first thing in the morning!” Roman declared. “Sure,” Anx yawned, too tired to really care about anything besides getting some sleep. They hunted around for a safe spot for a little bit, then settled down  for the night in the relative cover of a thick stand of bushes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving everyone!(if you celebrate it. If not, happy random day)


	6. Snow and Winglight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have a nice fluffy chapter with the tiniest hint of plot to wait until I drop my first plot-heavy chapter on you... although even that chapter's probably going to be mostly fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on, I'm just going to be posting chapters when they're ready because I'm worried I'll miss a chapter when I go back over my work when I want to post. Not that I've been doing a great job of following my upload schedule anyways XD.

“I still cannot establish a connection,” Logan told his brother as they walked between the series of islands separated by knee deep salt water. They had been walking in slowly growing circles for almost two hours now, and Logan was starting to lose his patience. If they hadn’t managed a connection by now, it was likely they needed to head back to Waterfall Side in order to be in range of a channel.  
“We have to be close!” Patton replied, bounding across another small stretch of shallow water.  
“If we are going to establish a connection we need to be closer to one of the rainy villages,” Logan sighed, as he turned back towards the Gathering Island.  
“Come on, they’re going to worry about us,” he whined.  
“I suppose we are not expected to be back until lunch,” he conceded and checked the time. “Hopefully we will be able to get within range within the hour. If not, we will have to wait until tomorrow to continue searching.” Patton gave no response other than to grin and bound in the direction of their normal village.

Anx woke at dawn to the absence of his brother. “Roman?” He called, looking around for him.  
“Yes?” his brother sang from behind the bushes.  
“Don’t disappear like that,” Anx huffed.  
“I’m literally three steps away,” he replied, as a rainbow griffin appeared.  
“Why do you like that shift so much?” he grumbled as he stood, brushing leaves and grass off of his clothes.  
“Because griffins are majestic creatures and because I can, ok?” the griffin shot back in a voice that seemed overly hurt.  
“Yeesh,” Anx muttered. The pair spent a couple more minutes on the ground before taking off again to search.  
“Is it just me, or does it feel like it’s going to snow,” Anx asked, shivering in his thick hoodie.  
“It’s not quite that cold,” his brother replied, but he gave a glance to the darkening clouds above them as well. They flew on for about another hour before some soft powder began to drift down. “Looks like it is that cold, Princey,” Anx commented. “Now, can we land before we freeze to death?” he continued, as he tilted his wings so that he glided towards the ground.  
“We are not giving up!” Roman replied, as he turned his wings into fire. Anx rolled his eyes and flew back up to the warmth of his older brother’s wings.

Logan glanced up at the sky as snow began to drift down. It was cold, but it didn’t seem cold enough for snow. He glanced at his brother, who had put on his cardigan.  
“Patton, I believe we should return to the Gathering Island,” he said, still trying to figure out if his senses were deceiving him or if it really was this warm and it was snowing. It seemed like the most probable answer was that his senses were deceiving him, but he found it hard to believe.  
“But you said we could keep looking for an hour, and it’s not even that cold, strangely,” Patton replied, whispering the last word.  
“I do not think it is safe to stay out here,” he countered, giving another glance at the sky, where more snowflakes were drifting down.  
“But you promised,” he protested.  
“Actually, I said we weren’t expected back until lunch and that hopefully we would find a connection within the hour,” Logan pointed out. The snow was coming down more thickly now, “Soon we will not be able to see very well. We need to head back to safety,” he argued.  
“But our friends, Logan! Don’t you care about them?” Patton said, blinking snowflakes out of his eyelashes.  
“I do care about them, but I also care about our own safety. We need to go back to the Gathering Island before it becomes too difficult to navigate the area,” he said, scrapping one hoof through the drifts of snow that were already starting to build up. It was getting colder as the snow thickened, too. Neither of them had ever brought any sort of winter clothes to the Gathering, and in combined total all they had on them was two polo shirts, two pairs of glasses, a cardigan, a tie, an IPortal, and a sand dollar that Patton had discovered in the aforementioned cardigan. The snowfall was quickly turning in to a blizzard, and with it their ability to see was shrinking. “It’s too late to make it back to the island now. Let’s find somewhere sheltered from the wind and try to make a fire,” Logan snapped, although he doubted they would be able to get a fire going with these conditions and knowledge on the subject. He shook those thoughts away and Patton’s hand, bowing his head in to the wind. 

“These are the worst possible flying conditions!” Anx yelled, although his words were snatched away by the wind. They had joined hands some time ago and were struggling against the wind, but if anything, they were being pushed back. “We can’t even see the ground, we need to land,” he yelled directly in to Roman’s ear. The wind picked up, and now they most definitely were being pushed back towards Waterfall Side. Roman yelled back some sort of response, but he started flying towards the ground. Anx followed him, struggling to keep some semblance of control against the wind. They stumbled as they landed and fell in to a snow drift. Roman’s wings glowed against the snow, although for some reason it didn’t melt. Roman pulled himself up and stuck his hand down to help up Anx. They tried to peer through the snow without success, but they linked their hands more securely and trudged on.

“What’s that glow up ahead?” Patton asked, yelling to be heard over the wind. It was the only thing that broke up the seemingly never ending landscape of white.  
“Probably fire,” Logan replied. One of his hands was tightly gripping his brother’s hand, and he was rubbing his arm with his other in a small attempt to create more heat.  
“Who would be out in this weather?” Patton asked, pushing on faster.  
“Possibly anyone. The storm came on quite quickly. Let’s try to get to them,” Logan replied, tugging his brother along. If he had been alone he probably would have been stotting right now, leaping over the ever-growing banks of snow, although who knows if he would have had the energy. That was beside the point, Patton couldn’t stot, and there was no way Logan was leaving his brother to freeze to death. It seemed to take an eternity, although it couldn’t have been that long or the brothers would have been in an even worse state, before they came to the source of the glow. Neither the source of the glow or the brothers would have expected it. 

“Patton? Logan? Who has stranded you out here?” Roman asked, drawing his sword.  
“Warmth,” was Logan’s only reply as he pulled Patton back from touching the fiery wings that somehow didn’t burn Roman’s clothes.  
“They’re frozen half to death, Ro. One option, and I’m just throwing this out there, is to wait to murder villains until the blizzard goes away,” Anx smirked. They still had to shout to be heard, but the trees provided enough protection from the wind that they would hear each other from 6 inches away.  
“I suppose justice can wait until we ensure our brave escapees are safe,” Roman sighed, then warmed his wings to help the deer brothers. The four waited in the snow for another several minutes. Slowly Logan and Patton’s shivering slowed, then stopped as they warmed up.  
“We apologize for not remembering to tell you about this earlier. That is actually why we were out here, we were trying to establish a communication portal to tell you about it. The fresh water supply at many of the islands around here dries up during the summer, and many of the deer villages go to a different island, the Gathering Island, during the summer or go to a different village where there is water all year. Our village is one of the ones that go to the Gathering Island, and we have not had friends outside of the deer villages before, so it slipped out minds that you would not know of this tradition,” Logan said after a while. Roman and Anx looked at him blankly for a couple seconds as Patton looked between them worriedly, although his gaze might have stopped for a tad longer on Roman.  
“That was possibly the longest way to explain that you forgot to tell us that you move for the summer,” Anx eventually broke the silence.  
“I could explain it more thoroughly and with larger words if I wanted to,” he replied, prompting a small laugh from Anx.  
“So… there’s no villain to slay?” Roman said slowly.  
“Well, I say whoever is making this weather definitely needs a stern talking to,” Patton laughed.  
“Yes, the weather is quite odd. I will have to speak to my colleagues and professors about it when we return to the Gathering Island,” Logan replied, glancing at the sky again.  
“Don’t worry about it, Lo! We have Roman and Anx, now let’s enjoy the moment!” Patton replied, playfully pushing Logan’s side. 

They continued to chat as the blizzard slowly passed by, and for a little longer after that. Eventually the four friends had to part ways, Roman and Anx would go back to Waterfall Side to go through the portal to their village, and Logan and Patton would go back to the Gathering Island.  
“We shall journey to visit you soon!” Roman said, already about a foot off the ground.  
“Yeah, and warn a guy next time you plan on moving? Some people might think they offended you,” Anx replied.  
“See you soon! And you could never offend me! You only help to lift me up you sweet and sour misunderstood shadowling,” Patton replied. Anx was confused by this, but he didn’t voice his opinions as Logan started speaking.  
“We look forward to seeing you, however do you actually know the way to the Gathering Island? Don’t say you have an IPortal, as there are no magic channels on the island. Also, Anx, not telling you was an accident, and if you offended Patton or me, I would personally see to it that you understood the offense and were sorry for it,” Logan replied, to which Anx laughed, although somehow he was relieved beyond words by Logan’s words, and Roman made some offended noises before replying.  
“You just fly straight east from your house, it’s not that hard,” he said with an over the top amount of indignancy.  
“How did you even figure out it was east? We’ve been flying in a spiral,” Anx replied, shooting his brother a sideways look.  
“One of my many talents,” Roman replied, smiling cheekily.  
“I swear if my signed compass is gone when I get back I am going to kill you,” he replied, to which his brother produced a small compass with a signature and a tiny note on the back before he pocketed it and shot away. Anx quickly flew after him, shouting profanities which made Patton wince.  
“Shall we return home?” Logan asked, turning in the direction of the Gathering Island. The brothers started back, chatting some, but mostly staying quiet from the exhaustion of walking all day. They stepped on to the island and made their way to where their family should have been, but all that was there was mounds of snow. Logan turned around just in time to see what could have been a pair of glinting blue eyes before they disappeared. He told himself it was just a trick of the light, but something about them left an unpleasant feeling in the deer centaur’s gut.


	7. Magic and Arguments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, plot! It all dissolves in to fluff by the end, though.

The deer brothers looked around for their family, or any of their friends and acquaintances from any of the villages, but found everything abandoned under a layer of snow.

“It doesn’t make sense. If they had left willingly they likely would have taken most or all of their things, and if they left unwillingly there would have been signs of a struggle, but everything appears to be in its proper place, and there is no sign of violence in the snow or on the structures. It’s like they just disappeared in to thin air, only that is impossible,” Logan said, examining the area around the springs. “Also, unless my senses are very confused, the snow should be melting by now. It doesn’t make any sense,” he added, picking up a handful of the white powder. The trees and ground were coated in it, but it felt like it a nice summer day. The snow itself was cold, but that would have been impossible with the weather. A warm breeze stirred a small drift of snow, and the snow disappeared. Logan narrowed his eyes and tossed his handful of snow up to let the breeze take it. Sure enough, the snow disappeared. “This isn’t natural. It is outside of the bounds of any magic we know of. Whoever, or whatever is doing this is extremely powerful,” he said.

“Lolo,” Patton choked, and Logan looked over to see the small deer satyr cradling a dead bird in his hands. He bounded over to his brother and lifted the small creature out of Patton’s hands. Its body was cold and stiff, showing it had died somewhere between a couple hours ago and a couple days ago. Logan guessed it was closer to the couple hours ago side and the cold had been the cause of death.

“Where did you find it?” he asked, as he looked around for any sort of other corpses or an indentation in the snow that would show where Patton had found it. Patton pointed to a bank of snow which had fallen against a small lean-to. Logan walked over and saw the indentation from where the bird had died, as well as the disturbance of the snow from Patton’s hands. He pushed aside some of the snow and watched it disappear. He dug through the snow bank until he found another corpse, that of a chimera, that had probably died in the storm as well.

“There should be the corpses of others of our village around here. We never bring warm clothes to the Gathering Island, and there’s no area clear of snow, which would signify a fire,” Logan said, looking around again. Something clicked inside his head.

“But Roman’s wings didn’t melt the snow. They provided heat, but they didn’t melt the snow,” he whispered. He picked up another handful of snow, still cradling the bird carcass in one hand. He examined it, by all appearances it looked like snow, except for one. Its magical signature was far from the one produced by water in any of its states.

“This isn’t snow. It’s a magical byproduct of something. My guess is that it reacts to itself, which creates the cold temperature, and to something in deer/human mixes magical signature that caused these disappearances. It probably can only exist below a certain temperature and has a low specific heat, which explains why it disappears in mid air,” he said and threw the handful of “snow” in to the air again to watch it disappear. 

“Are you ignoring the fact that there is a dead bird in your hand, Logan?” Patton asked, running over. “We have to give it a proper burial,” he added before his brother could reply.

“Patton, we did not know the bird, it is not our duty. We should take some of this snow home and see what we can find out about it,” Logan sighed.

“Just because we didn’t know them doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect!” Patton replied, then moved to the base of a tree and started digging. Logan sighed and kicked the “snow” back over the chimera. It didn’t escape him that they might be useful to observe, but a quick check on the bird’s magical signature revealed nothing strange, so he figured he wouldn’t find anything pertinent to the disappearance of probably close to a thousand deer/human mixes, possibly more. 

“But if it was something in our magical signatures, Patton and I would be affected,” he realized as he walked over to where his brother was trying to break through the cold earth. Logan helped him to push aside the dirt until they had a shallow grave dug. Logan set the bird down inside and watched as Patton replaced the dirt and “snow.” Something was definitely not right here.

 

Logan gathered some of their things, including blankets, pillows, toothbrushes, toothpaste, food, clothes, some of his books, two of the stuffed animals Patton always insisted on bringing, and a couple containers he filled with the “snow”. He packed their bags, then returned to the gravesite, where Patton was kneeling and crying. It seemed excessive for a bird they had never known, afterall death was a natural part of life. Although Logan imagined it would be hard if someone you were close to died, he had never had that experience, and to him death was just something to be studied and understood. Well, that was true of his perception of most things: something to be studied and understood. Write a report, then move on to the next thing to study and understand. He knew he couldn’t understand everything, but he would certainly try to explain as many phenomena as possible in his lifetime. That was when he noticed something off about is brother.

“Patton, are you… wearing the cat onsie from chapter four?” he asked.

“Aw, I literally just put it on right meow,” he replied, smiling although his eyes were still red from crying and his tears were still wet on his cheeks.. 

“That is patently absurd. I just went to gather our belongings. Your onsie would have been with your clothes,” he replied, glancing at the bag full of Patton’s stuff that he held in one hand.

“Would have been funnier if you said patton-ly,” he muttered, taking the bag.

“You are ignoring the matter at hand, Patton,” Logan argued, adjusting his glasses.

“You can try to knock me down Logan, but I will always land on my feet...like a cat!” he replied, sticking his hands into the paws and pulling them up to his face. 

 

Logan continued to try to get an answer from his brother to no avail. They eventually reached the portal and dived through. Soon they were knocking on the door of their friend’s house. It was answered by a lanky teen with eagle wings and an orange beanie.

“Patton and Logan?” the teen asked, arching one eyebrow. 

“Yup!” Patton replied. “And who are you?”

“Joan, Roman and Anx’s quibling. Aren’t you two supposed to be on some Gathering Island?” they replied. 

“That is why we have come. May we enter? It’s quite urgent,” Logan replied.

“Oh, yeah, make yourselves at home. Roman’ll probably wake up soon,” they replied, then stepped away from the door. Logan and Patton stepped in, and Joan swung down the hallway. They sat on the couch and talked for awhile. Eventually Roman stumbled out. 

“Why aren’t you on that island?” he yawned, stumbling to the kitchen. He had on red pjs with white crown decals on it, and his hair was brown instead of rainbow. Logan could have sworn he was usually taller, too.

“The island was abandoned with no sign or struggle or movement. Also, the snowstorm last night was not made out of snow, but a magical byproduct we have not encountered before,” Logan replied.

“So there is a villain to slay,” he replied excitedly, as he rummaged around the in the kitchen for something to eat. 

“Not necessarily. We do not know what process is causing this byproduct, and it is very likely this effect was unknown and unintended,” he replied. Patton watched them and fidgeted with the sleeves of his onsie. His mind was still on the poor little bird he had buried back at the village. He wanted to go back and properly mourn, but he also knew he couldn’t and that whatever they were saying was probably important. He tried to listen, but he kept finding his thoughts dragged back to the Gathering Island. What exactly had happened there? And were his friends and parents ok?

“You mean that this magical being didn’t mean to make several villages go poof? Come on, you have to admit that’s crazy,” Roman huffed. They continued to  argue over whether or not there was a villain to fault for all the disappearances. 

“Guys, come on, it doesn’t really matter. Can’t we all just get along?” Patton, ever the peacemaker, asked. 

“I am simply positing that we do not know all the variables at play here,” Logan said.

“And I say it’s time to fight back against this tyranny!” Roman declared, pulling out his sword. 

“We do not know if there is tyranny here, Roman,” he groaned.

“All of you friends and family disappeared, Erlenmeyer Trash,” he shot back.

“That’s not true! You and Anx didn’t disappear,” Patton piped up, looking up at the taller shapeshifter through his bangs.

“Patton, I think you just achieved a new world record for cutest person ever,” Roman sighed.

“That would be impossible, cuteness is entirely subjective. For example, some people do not think baby pegasi are cute, while many others would argue in favor of their visual appeal,” Logan replied.

“Ok, I’m going to need you to be real quiet because you just earned my number one spot in my dunzo list,” Roman replied, turning to the deer centaur.

“Dunzo list?” he asked, giving the other a weird look.  

“We’re dunzo,” he replied, making a stop sign out of his hand.

“Roman, that is very visually unappealing,” he replied, as Patton quickly looked away. Roman quickly shifted it back to a normal human hand, only to extend his hand to Logan from the kitchen. 

“Stop! Get it, get it back!” he yelled, batting at the hand. Roman huffed and drew it back.

“I believe he is finished using his shapeshifting ability in disturbing ways,” Logan told his brother as Roman went back to finding some food.

“What’s all the yelling about?” Anx grumbled, coming down the hallway in a purple set of pjs with black spider decals on them and without his normal eyeshadow on.

“EE! Spiders!” Patton yelled. Anx looked down at his pj and wished he had gotten in to his normal clothes before coming out of his room.

“We saw several spider webs on the Gathering Island, and yet his clothing unsettles you?” Logan asked.

“Well there weren’t any spiders on them, Logan, and those pjs are literally covered in them,” Patton replied.

“Those are just silly cartoons, they’re not even realistic! But if need be, I will destroy them for you, Patton,” Roman replied, deadpanning on the last sentence.

“Thanks, but let’s call them what they are, Roman,” Patton replied with a very small and very scared smile.

“Spider p-”

“Creepy crawly death dealers,” he deadpanned. 

“Ok,” Roman breathed, although none of the others heard it. Sometime during this exchange Anx had gone back to this room, and now he emerged in his normal outfit, minus his makeup. “Uh, sorry about that, Pat,” he said.

“Oh, no, I should be the one apologizing! I shouldn’t have let my fears get the best of me, I don’t care how dark your clothes are, you shine… bright like a diamond!” Patton quickly said, singing the last little part in a horribly off key voice.

“You ok, you ok Patton?” Roman asked, coming back in to the living room with a waffle. Logan was about ready to ban the overdramatic shapeshifters from waffles, although he would have no way of enforcing that. 

“I just got a lot of feels,” Patton replied, sounding like he was on the verge of tears. Honestly, he probably was, with all of the events and how insensitive he had been about something that he now realized really didn’t affect him. Anx awkwardly shifted his feet. He wanted to say tell Patton is was ok about the spider pj stuff, but he was affected more than he would care to admit and they seemed to have already moved on.

“Can we get back to the task at hand?” Logan asked.

“Can someone tell me what’s going on here?” Anx asked, looking between the other three.

“Of course, I will summarize it for you. After we parted ways last night, Patton and I returned to the Gathering Island. When we arrived, the village was covered in snow and we did not see anyone. Upon further investigation, I discovered the snow is actually a byproduct or a material produced by a magical process. I believe that is the cause of the disappearance of everyone who was on the Gathering Island, however I have yet to deduce what causes the “snow” to react, as Patton found a bird who presumably froze to death. Also, it can only exist below a certain temperature, and reacts with itself to create the temperature it needs to exist. I also believe it has very low specific heat, so if some is separated from other particles of “snow” it quickly disappears. Keep in mind I have not been able to test my theories yet, although I brought some samples here. The yelling was Roman and me arguing about whether or not there was malevolent force to fault for the creation of the “snow”, followed by a small argument over the subjectivity of visual appeal, and finally Roman doing some subjectively disturbing things with his shapeshifting abilities,” Logan replied. Roman helpfully demonstrated the ‘disturbing things with his shapeshifting abilities’ by extending his elbow to Anx.

“Ok, so, how long until Prince Under Arm Stink drags us off on another adventure?” Anx asked.

“Right after I finish my waffle! Also, that was hardly inventive,” Roman replied.

“I just woke up in case you hadn’t noticed,” Anx replied, then walked over to grab an apple from the bowl sitting on the half wall dividing the kitchen from the living room. 

“We are not immediately embarking on an adventure. None of us would know where to begin looking for whoever created the “snow”, besides the fact that we should all have more time to rest and examine the “snow” to address any possible safety risks to ourselves or others,” Logan replied.

“Are you serious?” he grumbled.

“I’m always serious, clearly, I wear a necktie,” Logan replied, gesturing to his tie.

“Serious people wear neckties,” Patton said quietly. 

“Can y’all skip the arguing? How can you do all this in the morning, it’s making me light headed just keeping up with you,” Anx replied.

“It’s two pm,” Logan replied.

“Close enough, Princey and I just woke up,” he shot back. 

“Yes. Perhaps it would be advantageous to unpack and come back to this issue after we have had time to ruminate over the information we have for a  while,” he replied.

“I’ll take you to my school tomorrow. They have a bunch of stuff because of the experiments we do. Last winter they even let us culture bacteria,” Anx said, messing with the strings on his hoodie.

“Excellent. Thank you, Anx,” he replied. 

“I’ll go drag the mattresses back down,” Roman offered.

“I’ll help!” Patton quickly volunteered.

“Hey, shouldn’t we talk to Mom and Dad?” Anx yelled after them.

“They’ll be fine with it, Joan’s had their friends stay over so late they got home while they were still there and they never said a word,” he yelled back. 

“Should we help them?” Logan asked, peering down the hallway.

“Nah. If you want a proper meal tonight, we make it now then block them off from the kitchen before Roman can burn it,” Anx replied.

“You act as though this is normal,” he replied, giving his friend a concerned look.

“Imagine what Patton would do if he could shapeshift in to literally anything that could possibly exist,” he replied.

“He would probably just shapeshift in to a hybrid between a dog and a dove, then spend his entire time flying. He would also probably try to find out a way to make it unnecessary for him to eat so he didn’t have to eat dead things, even if they died of natural causes,” he replied, adjusting his glasses.

“That sounds like Pat,” Anx laughed.

“Now, would you like to aid me in preparing our meal?” Logan continued.

“Sure thing, Nerd,” he replied, and with that they made their way to the kitchen, leaving Patton and Roman to haul four mattresses back down to the living room, and Logan may or may not have sent Anx to buy a potion to generate thick, thorny vines to block Roman from getting into the kitchen and locked the other entrance while pocketing the key until it was time to eat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this was going to be multiple chapters, but I couldn't see a good ending point. Even the ending point I eventually reached feels a little rushed to me, but *shrugs*.


	8. Experimentation and Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have some more fluff and a tiny bit of Patton angst. The angst is, uh, not very long.

“Widen your stance, that is the base for all of your attacks, evasions, and parries,” Roman instructed, looking at Patton with a critical eye. They had been in a clearing near the Woodland Grotto village for nearly an hour now with swords. Roman was trying to teach Patton how to attack and defend using a sword on several rolls of wet paper, but it wasn’t going well, not for lack of trying from either parties. Patton was just, well, Patton. He found it hard to hurt things even when they were inanimate objects. It also didn’t help that Roman was used to being able to making his body be able to do pretty much anything while Patton had his natural form and that was it (not that it was a bad thing). Patton shifted his feet so that they were slightly wider than shoulder width, and looked intently at the rolls of paper, which were staying upright with the help of some small sticks Roman had poked through the center. It certainly helped, but they were still ever-so-slowly sagging over.  
Y “Now, go from the left and put everything you have in to it,” Roman said, guiding Patton’s hands to aim diagonally down on to the paper, from left to right. He stepped back to a safe distance, then gave his student a thumbs up. Patton brought the sword, one of Roman’s old ones, down on to the paper rolls with as much force as he could bring himself to put in to the blow… and it cut roughly half an inch into the first roll. Roman sighed thinking about how even that was an improvement from the first time, where Patton had somehow managed to make the very sharp sword bounce harmlessly off of the paper.  
“Sorry I’m having such a hard time will all of this,” Patton said, resting the sword point on the ground. Roman despised whenever his swords were treated like that, but for some reason the only protective feelings rising up from him were for the very person who was mistreating his beautifully manicured sword.  
“¡Ay no! Don’t blame yourself for being the softest little puffball on earth,” Roman replied.  
“Aw, is that what you think of me?” Patton squealed.  
“I’d like to see someone try to be as innocent and forgiving as you. Now, how about I teach you parries and dodges instead?” he asked, producing two blunt wooden swords and two sets of leather training armour that Roman was pretty sure was made out of mushrooms or some other plant life, because it didn’t feel quite like leather, but it was pretty darn close, and it protected like leather, so what was the difference, from the bag he had packed after getting Patton to agree to let him train him in swordfighting, which hadn’t been hard.  
“Ok!” Patton agreed, silently hoping it would be easier than attacking, although that thought was mostly overwhelmed by the glow he was still feeling from Roman’s compliment. He pulled on the armour Roman tossed to him. It was a bit loose on him, but it felt tight enough that it would stay on, so he quickly traded in the metal sword in his hand for the wooden training sword.  
“Alright. First is dodges. Parries should always be a last resort, they’re very overromantized in movies. I mean, I love a good adventure flick, but come on, do your research!” Roman started, taking up an attack stance, only to lose it through gesturing dramatically at the end of his sentence. He took up his stance again and started to teach Patton how to dodge, which the deer satyr was very good at, followed by drills and finally parries. When they finally finished both of them were drenched in sweat, but they smiled all the same. Roman treated Patton to dinner at a local restaurant, saying it was for being such a good student, although perhaps it was also to ward off the possibility of finding himself still trapped out of his very own kitchen and forced to eat whatever Logan came up with for dinner that night.

Anx and Logan had headed out to Anx’s school a little before Roman and Patton had left to practice sword fighting. Logan quickly managed to convince the staff members(it was a student holiday in Woodland Grotto) of the importance of his research and his trustworthiness, so the pair were essentially given free rein to do whatever they liked with whatever was in the science classrooms or storage closets. Logan quickly set up a lab space in one of the classrooms, complete with lab aprons and safety goggles for him and Anx, despite the shapeshifter’s protests that they had already touched a bunch of it and been completely fine.  
“Safety first,” he insisted, tapping the goggles he had already strapped on over his goggles. Anx grumbled something incoherent and strapped on the pair Logan handed him.  
“Normally you’re the one who’s worried about things that are unlikely to happen,” the deer centaur noted, opening the first sample and putting some of the “snow” on to a microscope slide.  
“Yeah, well, normally my precautions don’t include looking stupid,” Anx grumbled, leaning against the one clear table in the entire room. He wasn’t even sure what half of the stuff Logan had found did, much less why and how the school had them.  
“You don’t look stupid. In fact, you are actually quite cute,” he replied, then quickly bent over the microscope to try to hide the blush that he was sure was creeping across his face. Anx didn’t reply, not trusting his voice. He knew that Logan couldn’t see him with how intently he was looking down the microscope, and, he noted, ignoring his own statement about safety by pushing his goggles off of his face, but he still hoped his concealer hid the blush that was creeping across his face.  
“Could you hand me a clipboard and pencil?” Logan asked, not looking up.  
“What am I, your servant?” he grumbled, but he fetched it for him anyways.  
“And paper, please,” he added, looking down at the empty clipboard. Anx put a small stack next to him.  
“Thank you,” he said, already jotting down notes in a handwriting that Anx was surprised belonged to the deer centaur. He considered himself to be pretty good at deciphering handwriting, but even he couldn’t understand some of the words Logan was jotting down. Maybe it was partly because of the humongous words he was using, but in all seriousness, it was ridiculously bad. If it had been Roman writing, he definitely would have made a snarky comment, but he instead he focused on trying to understand his handwriting. 

“I’ll have a spaghetti plate with tomato sauce and meatballs and a mixed berry sparkling water, what about you, Patton?” Roman told the waiter, directing the last bit at the deer satyr sitting across from him.  
“Um, gosh, it all looks so good! Uh, how about a house salad with a strawberry-banana smoothie?” Patton replied, flipping quickly through the menu again before settling on his order.  
“And your appetizer?” the waiter asked, jotting down their orders.  
“Breadsticks!” Roman said before Patton could look through the menu for the appetizers again.  
“Alright, your food will be right out,” the waiter said and moved off.  
“Trust me, you have not lived until you try the breadsticks from this place,” Roman said.  
“Are they, a-meow-sing?” Patton asked, holding up one of the paws of his cat onsie, which now seemed to have taken up a permanent residence around his neck in place of his cardigan. Roman laughed.  
“Indeed they are, Patton. The most amazing in all the land,” he replied. They continued to chat as they waited for their food to come, and there was barely a break in their conversation when the breadsticks came, which, Patton commented, lived up to Roman’s claims. They continued to chat as they as they left the restaurant, their feet(and hooves) led them down a winding path through the forest instead of back to Roman’s house. Slowly their chatter faded to silence as they enjoyed each other’s company and their surroundings. Eventually their chatter picked back up where it had left off all the way until they opened the door to the house, where they split ways to go shower.

“How many classes have you taken on persuading people?” Anx asked after Logan easily convinced a teacher to give him a pass to access the building when there was no one there and claimed a small space in the back of one of the classroom he had chosen to leave his research things for an easier set up.  
“I have taken two classes on debate, and we cover persuasive writing in English every year,” he replied easily.  
“Of course. Now can you help me get this thingamabob over? It’s heavy,” Anx replied, trying to lift a piece of machinery up.  
“It’s called an incubator,” Logan replied, as he lifted the end opposite to Anx. Together they managed to fit everything in to the little space they had been allotted, except for the samples, which Logan insisted on keeping with him. They headed back to Anx’s house in comfortable silence, and opened the door to see a bag full of sword fighting equipment dumped on the floor and the sound of running water.  
“Roman,” Anx sighed, toeing the edge of the bag with one foot.  
“You would think with the amount of mastery he has over his shapeshifting abilities he would have chosen to eliminate sweat in favor of directly removing heat to avoid the odor, or at least removed the bacteria which cause the odor,” Logan said, wrinkling his nose. Anx nodded his agreement.  
“Anyways, wanna get cooking before those two get out of the showers and try to convince us to let ‘em back in to the kitchen?” he asked, as Patton came down the hallway.  
“Me and Roman already ate. Can I help you cook?” he asked.  
“Patton, you in a kitchen is comparable to a bull in a china shop,” Logan sighed. His brother was certainly skilled overall, he had picked up several miscellaneous talents through helping others, but cooking was one he had never been good at.  
“Pwease?” he asked, giving Logan puppy eyes.  
“Patton, no,” he replied, crossing his arms.  
“Come on, Lolo! I really want to learn,” he pleaded.  
“I’ll aide you in your learning process later with a less complex recipe. Besides, you already helped me bake in chapter four,” he replied.  
“Fine,” Patton finally relented, letting Logan and Anx retreat to the kitchen. 

Roman emerged from his room after a few more minutes.  
“The nerds aren’t back yet?” he said, glancing around the room.  
“Nah, Logan and Anx are here. They’re just in the kitchen,” he replied, and pointed to the barricade of vines, which Roman had nearly ruined one of his swords trying to cut.  
“You can’t lock us out of my own kitchen!” Roman yelled to the vines.  
“Clearly I can. Besides, this is Anx’s kitchen as much as yours. Technically this isn’t even your kitchen, it is your parents,” Logan yelled back, “Speaking of your parents, it is odd that we have not met them. We have been here for quite a while.”  
“Business trip,” he yelled.  
“Ok, now please be quiet so we can focus on cooking,” he continued. A tiny mischievous smile began to creep on to Roman’s face. He had been looking for a way to get revenge on Logan for locking him out of his own kitchen, and for just generally being annoying, and had decided destroying his samples would be going to far, he did have standards afterall. That and the fact that he essentially never took his eyes off of them, even at that moment they were in the kitchen where Logan could keep track of them, and it would probably set lengthen the time that it took for him to actually do all the research he deemed necessary. This, however, this would be revenge at its finest.  
“Imma go drop this off in my room,” Roman said, grabbing the bag of sword fighting equipment. Patton nodded that he heard and the shapeshifter ran down the hallway, even using his wings to make him run faster. Patton nearly laughed at his enthusiasm. Roman soon returned with his IPortal and scrolled through it for the most classic and annoying meme song. He turned up his volume all the way and hit play.  
“They asked for quiet,” Patton reminded him, covering his ears from the volume.  
“I can hear you,” Logan shouted over the music. Roman resisted the urge to shout good.  
“Music is supposed to help people focus,” he told Patton in explanation, although he didn’t actually know if that was true.  
“I don’t think Logan likes it, and uh, he’s a wild cat when he’s angry,” he replied. Right on cue Logan opened the door in to the living room and stood over Roman. Seeing as he stood at about 9 feet tall, not including his antlers, which added about another two feet, he made quite an intimidating image. Even Roman, who may or may not have aided his height with his shifting ability, had to look up to look him in the eyes.  
“Quiet!” he shouted, turning off the music, then returned to the kitchen. Ah, revenge, even in just a couple seconds, was sweet.  
“Want to take revenge on him?” Anx asked, glancing over at the deer centaur enetered the room.  
“Such an action would be entirely petty,” Logan replied, although his voice didn’t do a great job of convincing the shapeshifter that he didn’t want to, and the sentence sounded incomplete.  
“But?” he asked, moving a saucepan off of the stove.  
“Let’s do it.”


	9. Bugs and Puns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey what time it is?
> 
> It's fluffy time.

Anx and Roman had to go to school, much to Patton’s dismay, but it created the perfect opportunity for Logan. Anx and Logan had planned how to take revenge on Roman while they were finishing up their dinner, and in the end had constructed the perfect plan. Both of them knew they this was likely the start of a prank war, but Anx had won a prank war before, and Logan had quite a few tricks up his sleeve, so they were ready. Patton eventually found some knitting materials discarded behind a desk, so he quickly became distracted by trying to teach himself how to knit. Logan eventually started helping him, the skill from his 8th grade required art class finally paid off, and soon Patton was happily entertained with knitting scarves for each of them. It was time for Logan to prowl.

Step 1: Find Roman’s room. Anx had already told him where it was, so this step wasn’t hard at all. The room was very recognizable as Roman’s, as his sword fighting equipment was still in the bag next to the door, shelves along the far wall held several props, and a couple of the large ones had a place in the corner next to the door. There was a sword rack along the wall closest to the entrance, and the remaining wall space was crammed with posters for different movies and musicals. 

Step 2: Make fake bugs. This step was a bit more complicated, but Anx had told him where some old plastic ones he had were and some paper and scissors to make some silhouette bugs.

Step 3: Scatter them. Logan set the bugs out around the room and taped the paper bugs to the inside of Roman’s lamps. He trailed them behind his bed so that it looked like they were coming from somewhere behind there. The prank would be obvious when the bugs didn’t move, but all pranks were obvious almost immediately.

Step 4: Wait. This wasn’t hard either, he had a lot practice from experiments, after all. He busied himself with small tasks and helping Patton, as well as reviewing the notes he had taken from yesterday. 

Roman and Anx returned almost immediately after school.

“Salutations,” Logan greeted them, looking up from his notes.

“Greetings, fair citizens!” Roman declared.

“Sup,” Anx said.

“Hey!” Patton added.

“I suppose we should wait for a little while to allow everyone to exit the school before returning to research,” Logan commented.  _ Did he forget or is he just freaky good at pretending?  _ Anx asked himself silently. 

“Sure,” he shrugged and trudged over to drop off his stuff. 

“Patton, we shall return to training immediately!” Roman declared and rushed off to his room. Logan gave Anx a slight nod, and they listened as a horror movie scream erupted from down the hallway.

“You will pay for this, Nerd!” Roman yelled, then emerged with his sword fighting equipment. 

“What did you do?” Patton asked, looking sternly at his brother.

“I put fake bugs in his room. It is not harmful to him,” he replied evenly.

“But it’s not nice!” he protested.

“No, it is not. I believe Roman is anxious to leave the house,” he replied.

“You’re not getting off that easily, mister mister,” he said in his dad voice as he  allowed himself to be dragged out the door by Roman.

 

“Have you taken acting classes?” Anx asked as soon as the door closed.

“I took theater in 6th grade as my required fine arts course, however I mostly acted as the dramaturg and managed the special effects,” he replied.

“I don’t believe you. You’re freaky good,” he replied.

“Thank you. I am sure I have not had any acting experience outside of that class,” he replied, adjusting his glasses.

“Ok, I’m going to stalk you and see where you practice,” Anx replied.

“You are not missing school simply to watch me. Besides, Patton could tell you that I have not left the house. Speaking of that, would you like to spend some time outside as we wait for the school to clear out? Being outside has several benefits, such as-” he began.

“Sure, Lo,” he interrupted, laughing as the deer centaur huffed in annoyance, but gathered his samples and notes so they didn’t have to go back for them when they decided the actually go in and get back to researching. They skirted around the edge of town, and Anx pointed out anyone he recognized, mostly from school, and made silly, over dramatic commentary.

“Ah yes, Ink, known for being that one shy artist kid that has no friends. No one knows his actual name, and there are rumours that he sold his soul to become so good at art,” he commented in the deepest voice he could make. Logan gave a small huff of laughter.

“Selling your soul for a skill that can be easily developed through time and practice would be a waste,” he replied.

“So, how much for your soul?” he asked jokingly. Logan was silent for a moment, and Anx began to worry he had stepped to far.

“Well, I would never sell my soul. Besides the fact that we are not even sure if anyone has a soul, there would be no obvious way to remove it from the body other than through death, and even if someone managed to remove someone’s soul while they were alive, we have no idea how it would affect them, but seeing how a religious text has stated a soul is worth a  _ fluffens  _ made of gold _ ,  _ and using the volume of an average  _ fluffens,  _ convert that to gold and you can find the density then use the current market value of gold, and you get a value of roughly 3 million branch cash. Convert to fliers, and you get 2.25 million. Of course, I may have made a few errors in my calculations,” he replied. Anx stopped and stared at him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You are something else Logan,” he replied, then lifted off and flew to the school before his companion could reply.   
  


Patton lifted his sword to block Roman’s oncoming blow. He nearly stumbled from the sheer force he had put in to the blow, he certainly wasn’t holding back. He pushed his sword to the side to divert the force of the blow away from him. Roman quickly put his force in to a new swing, which Patton duck under, lightly tapping his wooden sword against his friend’s calf. It didn’t take long before he was stepping away from another series of quick blows, then sprinting away the dodge even more. He whirled around to block another blow before ducking under his arm as he was still recovering and lightly pressing his sword to Roman’s back. 

“Point,” he declared, panting for breath. They had started by going over the dodges and parries again, then Roman had decided Patton was skilled enough for sparring, and apparently he was, as Patton had won all the matches. Thinking about it, Patton decided that he  _ had  _ been holding back. He did not want to be the subject of the full force of the shapeshifter in attack mode. Just thinking about Roman, who would probably shift in to something deadlier, attacking him made him shudder. 

“And match,” Roman said, stepping away from the dull point of his friend’s sword. “To the victor go the spoils, I shall treat you to whatever food in Jord your heart desires!” he added, shrugging off his training armour.

“I desire to go home and see what Logan will make for dinner, and lecture him for that mean prank,” Patton replied, pulling his off.

“Do you really want to subject yourself to that torture, Patton?” he asked.

“But he’s actually a really good cook!” he protested.

“If you really like your greens,” he sniffed, then sang “Greens, greens, nothing but greens.”

“You’d like it if you really tried it. There’s nothing wrong with making a healthy meal for your friends,” he said, handing his sword over to Roman.

“I did try it, and there is something wrong with locking someone out of their very own kitchen,” he sniffed.

“Come on, it’s not that bad. The  _ point  _ is to make sure you don’t mess with it while they’re cooking,” Patton replied, pointing to the end of one of the sword. Roman badly tried to suppress a laugh.

“Alright, compadre. If your heart truly desires it, we shall eat whatever concoction Logan makes,” he conceded, packing up his swords.

“Yay! You wouldn’t be _ leaf  _ his cooking ability,” he replied, dancing in place and pointing to a leaf above him.

“I suppose he really is the  _ centaur _ of the kitchen,” he laughed, then watched as Patton’s eyes slowly lit up and he began squealing.

“Let’s keep this  _ pun- _ rade going!” he said, dancing in a circle around Roman, who laughed at his antics. They traded puns as they walked home and were somehow still at it when Logan and Anx came in. 

“Oh! Lolo, what happens to nitrogen when the sun rises?” Patton asked. Logan’s face slowly turned to dread.

“It becomes daytrogin,” Roman finished. Logan groaned as the pair laughed. Even Anx chuckled a little.

“I am going to the kitchen,” he said, carefully setting his things on the floor before bolting towards the door.

“No! Tell us how your experi _ mints  _ went!” he protested, and was answered by a loud groan that could be heard through the vine wall.

“Careful, he might make an im _ pasta  _ salad,” Anx ventured. The three continued to trade puns just loud enough that Logan, who was actually making a pasta salad, to hear. He groaned under his breath at some of the particularly bad ones, but of course he didn’t actually completely hate puns. It was extremely hard, possibly even impossible, to hate or love every aspect of something, not that he wouldn’t try to pretend he completely hated the corny jokes his brother loved to make. He checked the recipe he had found for the next step as someone made a jelly pun. He choked back a laugh and focused on making their dinner. No way was he going to let them crack his shell. He frowned at his own pun as he cracked an egg in to the pasta mixture. He redirected his thoughts by thinking about a new prank for Roman. He didn’t doubt the shapeshifter meant it when he said he would try to get revenge.  _ Emphasis on try,  _ he thought, mixing together his ingredients. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had free time while Anx and Roman had been at school, and if he had found out some neat pranks to pull using common plants in the area, well, no one needed to know that yet.


	10. Water and Arguments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You guessed it, more fluff!

“This is,” Logan began, staring down at the little water cups that paraded across the floor, “Impressive, Roman,” he sighed and adjusted his glasses. Roman smirked from where he perched on the couch.

“This is water, correct?” he asked, picking up a glass and peering at the clear substance.

“Yup,” he replied, popping the p.

“A deer often drinks about a gallon of water every day,” he said, “This is tap water, correct?” he asked.

“Yeah. You don’t mean you’re going to-” he began, then broke off when the deer centaur drank the entire cup in one gulp, then grabbed the next one and downed it equally as fast. Roman watched in complete surprise as he started to create two rows of clear space by drinking the water then putting the cups in a stack on his bed. He was about halfway to the door before he started pouring the water in to the other cups, which were only about a third full. He finally swung open the door and glared at the 

porch, which was also lined with water, although about a fourth of them had been pushed over when he opened the door.

“Really, Roman?” he sighed and set about picking up the shapeshifter’s prank. 

“Really, Logan,” he shouted back from inside. A little bit later Anx came down the hallway with his bookbag just to see his living room scattered with little plastic water cups. He dumped his book bag down and soared over the plastic cups to land carefully on the edge of Patton’s bed. The deer satyr in question was still somehow sleeping with a small smile on his face.

“What, you’re not going to help your boyfriend?” Roman asked, jerking his head towards where Logan was finishing up cleaning the ones on the porch. Anx felt a blush quickly spread across his face.

“We’re friends, Ro!” he squeaked.

“Really? Come on, you’ve never acted like that before. Admit it, you like him,” he pressed. 

“He just gets reality like you don’t,” he protested.

“Anx and Logan sitting on a cloud,” he started to sing.

“Oh shut your  _ arsle  _ up!” he yelled back.

“Language!” Patton yelled, somehow waking up at that exact moment and awake enough to properly recognize the words coming to his ears.

“Tell that jerk not to fill our living room with water cups,” he replied, jerking his thumb at his brother.

“Roman! What did you do?” he asked. Anx wondered how exactly he had this much energy after just waking up.  _ Was he faking sleep?  _ He wondered.

“Just teaching Logan not to mess with me,” he replied, shifting in to a position that showed off his wings.  _ And that is classic Roman trying to impress. I wonder if he even realizes he drops all these hints when he has a crush,  _ Anx thought.

“Just because Logan was mean doesn’t mean you can be mean back,” Patton scolded.

“It’s the only way he would have understood,” he whined.  _ Now that is just pathetic. If that were anyone else he would have been reduced to swears,  _ Anx noted at the moment that Logan stepped in to the tracks he had already made with a stack of cups in his hands.

“I would have understood if you told me. The only change is whether or not I change my actions, which I will tell you now, I would have if you talked to me,” he replied and deposited the cups in a stack with the previous ones.

“So then we all link hands and sing kumbaya? Ha! Not in a million years,” he replied haughtily.

“No, I would refuse to participate in that. Instead we likely would have continued being friends who tend to argue a lot,” he replied, not looking up from his task, which was now clearing the rows of cups that were in the middle of his walkway.

“And what are we now?” he asked.

“Enemies in a prank war,” he replied and adjusted his glasses.

“Logan! You aren’t enemies,” Patton, who had begun to help clean up, protested.

“Prank war? Oh it is on!” Roman replied, then smoothly shifted in to a gryphon to fly to his room.

“Anx, if you do not leave soon you will be late,” Logan said, noting the small shapeshifter, who was still perched on the edge of the bed.

“Ok. See ya,” he said, then flew over the cups to grab his book bag and go to school right before Roman shot back towards the door. Anx jerked away from his brother and nearly knocked over one of the cups before he muttered something under his breath and flew off.

 

It took the deer brothers almost an entire hour to clear out all of the cups of water. Patton entertained himself with the knitting supplies again, as Logan finished putting away the glass cups and frowned at the bulging garbage bag. He hadn’t seen any larger trash can to put in. He sighed and decided that he would talk to Anx about it later. 

“I am going to pick up some ingredients for dinner tonight. Would you like me to get you anything?” he asked, rummaging around in his bag for his money. He would have to find somewhere willing to exchange his branch cash for fliers, but he decided he would look around the portal, as there was usually somewhere to exchange it nearby. Going there would also give him an excuse to look for the white blooms that would be a part of his next prank.

“A dog?” Patton asked, smiling up at him.

“Patton, besides the fact that this is not our house and we are unaware of the allergies and needs of its residents, we don’t have enough time to give it the attention and love it deserves,” he sighed.

“Fine. A dog plushie?” he asked.

“Patton, I already got your cat plushies from the Gathering Island,” he said, pointing at the plushies, which were sitting on Patton’s bed.

“Pwease Lolo?” he asked. 

“No,” he replied, then shoved the door shut before his brother could protest. He took a few moments to regain his composure before he headed down the path to the portal.

 

A few minutes later, Logan had carefully sealed the smelly flowers into a container and got what he needed for dinner. He pushed open the door to find Patton trying with very little success to knit something around his antlers.

“Patton, you are going to damage your antlers,” he sighed, carefully stepping over the rolls of yarn which had somehow spread out from the deer satyr to almost the entire room.

“How?” he asked, still trying to get the yarn to obey his will.

“You do not know how to do that. Besides the fact that unless you make an opening along one side, you’ll never be able to get your antlers in to it,” he sighed. Patton tried to see where he was knitting, although he only caught a glimpse of his knitting needles.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he admitted and started to unwrap the yarn.

“I know I am,” he said, a hint of pride creeping in to his voice. He set down the bag of ingredients so he had his hands free to help his brother. Patton tried his best to sit still, but still squirmed a bit as Logan carefully unwound the strand of light blue yarn. He wrapped it back up into a ball and silently handed it to his brother.

“Thanks, Lolo!” he said, then quickly set to knitting something new.

“It was no problem, Patton,” he replied, then carried his bags in to the kitchen. It didn’t take long for him to put away all of the things he had bought, then checked the time. He had a couple hours until Roman and Anx came home from school. He looked at the container of white blooms before heading back in to the living room to see how much of the mess he could clean up. 

 

He nearly ran out of time, as it seemed like everytime he had wrapped up a ball of yarn Patton had managed to make another one roll off. It was 15 minutes before school would end when he finally remembered to check the time. He rushed to grab the flowers from where he had left them in the kitchen, then rushed to Roman’s room. All of the bugs were lined up in a neat row with his swords pointing down at them, including the paper ones. He smirked and glanced around for a moment to decide on the best place to plant his prank. It didn’t take long before his gaze landed on the storage box beneath Roman’s bed, perfect. He pulled it out, finding it full of even more props for theater.  _ These can’t all be for the same play,  _ Logan frowned, but looked at the space underneath. There was just enough room for the contained to be hidden behind the storage bin. He carefully opened the top and shoved it under before replacing the bin. He walked back down the hall to continue trying to clean up after Patton and wait for the shapeshifter to smell his room.

 

“Logan! What did you kill in here?” Roman screamed from down the hallway. Patton looked over at the deer centaur who was currently wrapping up a ball of purple yarn.

“I haven’t killed anything, Roman,” Logan called back and calmly placed the ball of yarn next to his brother’s knitting supplies.

“We didn’t even plan our next move,” Anx whispered.

“I had to pick up some ingredients for dinner, and I found a perfect prank opportunity. My apologies for not asking you about it earlier,” he replied. He had indeed forgot to run the prank by Anx, but that was probably just a habit from always being the one to do all the work in any required group projects. Oh how he hated group projects.

“No, you’re good. What did you even use?” he asked.

“Then what dead creature have you hidden in my room?” Roman demanded.

“Flowering pera blooms,” Logan told Anx before yelling a response to Roman, “I have not put a dead creature in your room!” 

“How do you explain this smell?” he spat.

“Flowers,” he yelled.

“I don’t see any flowers!” he yelled.

“Do you see a dead creature, either?” he yelled and adjusted his glasses. They began to argue loudly, but Patton and Anx couldn’t understand what the heck they were yelling at each other. They seemed to understand each other perfectly well, though, as their voices grew in volume to try to outcompete the other. The only thing that was clear was Roman’s use of cuss words.

“Watch your language!” Patton screamed, straining to be heard over the two, who were now only separated by about a foot of space. Roman was flying, and sending anything not heavy enough, which included yarn, bouncing around the room in his effort to look Logan in the eye. Patton desperately began to gather up the yarn while yelling at them to stop, although Anx doubted they could hear him. He tried to help him get the yarn under control, although neither of them were having very much success. 

 

It was almost an hour later when they finally fell silent, although Roman kept glaring at the deer centaur from where he had perched on the arm of the couch. Logan rubbed his deer set of ears, wondering how he had withstood the barrage of sound for so long with two sets of body parts to identify auditory signals with. 

“If you are finished, perhaps it is time to aide Anx and Patton in cleaning up what you knocked aside with the wind generated from flying,” he suggested.

“How about you don’t get so tall, sub-astute teacher,” he shot back.

“That was not an attack on you, and I am unable to change my genetic code,” he sighed and adjusted his glasses.

“Guys, come on. Please stop fighting?” Patton said, looking up at the pair with a couple balls of yarn hugged to his chest. Roman felt his heart melt, and he stepped off of the couch.

“Ok. Let the cleaning commence!” he declared, then quickly set to gathering up the random objects that had been knocked around. Logan’s eyes narrowed slightly at the shapeshifter’s sudden change in mood, but he shook it off and set to winding up the balls of yarn. He passively wondered who had been the original owner of the set, as they had clearly liked to knit. He let the thought pass and set the first ball down next to the bag. 

 

By the time the four managed to get everything cleaned up, they decided it was too late to get any substantial work done in Patton’s training or Logan’s research. Logan reluctantly agreed to make a simple pasta meal instead of what he had been planning on while Roman and Patton went on a quick jog. 

“Why don’t you put salt in and make it boil quicker?” Anx asked, leaning against the counter. He dispensed some whipped cream which he had snuck past Logan in to his mouth as soon as he had finished his sentence.

“Putting salt in to water does not make it boil at a faster rate. That is purely the effect of misinformation and the placebo effect,” he replied.

“How much info do you store up there?” Anx snorted, tapping his skull.

“Quite a bit,” he replied, turning around to face him.

“Ya know everything?” he asked.

“Only a fool believes they know or can know everything,” he scoffed, “For example, I do not think I will ever fully understand what goes on in other people’s brains. There are others, of course, but other’s behaviors have always been a mystery to me.”

“You think you can ever understand just Patton?” he asked, snorting as he thought of the cheery deer satyr. The two deer brothers couldn’t be any more different, but somehow they made it work.

“Stars no! I will be happy if I can ever explain even his obsession with cats,” he laughed. 

“Can’t a boy just like a cat?” he asked, giving him a half smile.

“Can’t someone who’s allergic to cats learn to leave them alone?” he shot back, although it was clear his frustration was more directed at his brother than Anx. They both laughed at that. They continued to chat as Logan finished making the pasta, of course he had added in some extra ingredients to make it pass for a slightly healthy meal. They heard the sound of showers running as Logan separated the pasta on to four plates. They came out as Roman emerged in his tiger onsie.

“I say our quest to vanquish the evil within has been neglected for too long!” he said, holding up Anx and Logan’s onsies from last time as Patton emerged in his cat onsie.

“Those garments are completely unnecessary,” Logan said, looking down at them. 

“Come on! It’ll be fun,” Patton pleaded.

“Eh, whatever,” Anx said and set the plates of pasta down on the floor. He grabbed the bat onsie and went down the hallway, then emerged with it on. Logan sighed and set the other two down to go get changed. They passed the controller around between bites of pasta, and Patton may or may not have nearly choked when he got too excited midbite as Logan got past a particularly difficult area.  _ As far as ways to spend the evening go, this is satisfactory,  _ Logan thought as he handed the controller over to Anx. They ended up staying awake for far longer than the deer centaur would have normally permitted, but, well, it was worth it.


	11. Tears and Cats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's this? Angst?

Logan stared down at his notes, tapping a pencil on the desk.

“What’s up, teach?” Anx asked as he let himself back in from a bathroom break.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he replied. Anx lifted an eyebrow and waited for him to continue.

“I can’t get it to react to anything besides itself. All the signs are pointing towards it reacting to a certain magical signature, but Patton and I had contact with it for an equal, or perhaps longer, period time, and we are still here without any apparent ill effect, other than the schooling lost because of the disappearance of all of our teachers and classmates, although everyone will have the same setbacks, so it’s tolerable for now,” he continued, squinting at his notes again, “There has to be something I’m missing,” he muttered.

“Just a thought, but maybe it’d be better to come back after taking a little break?” he suggested, glancing at the clock. They had been in the lab for a full three hours and he hadn’t taken a break. Anx thought he had a bad habit to get hung up on stuff, but this was a different level, or maybe it just looked worse from the outside. Logan sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I suppose you’re correct, if I haven’t found something yet it is unlikely I will find something by continuing to stare at it. It simply confuses and frustrates me that I cannot figure this out, and it’s not like there’s someone else who’s studied this before that I can reach out to,” he replied and set down his clipboard. He glanced at the clock.

“How time distorts,” he muttered. Anx watched him anxiously as he began to pace from one end of the room to the next, still muttering under his breath. It was probably somewhat normal, but it was still freaky as Logan, who normally noticed almost everything, passed by without so much of a flick of his ears to acknowledge his presence. Anx bit his lip, unsure of how to help. He pulled his legs up on to the counter he was sitting on and watched as his friend paced back and forth. Eventually he came down to look at the notes himself, although he couldn’t understand much of his friend’s chicken scratch. He settled on to the table, watching helplessly as he continued to pace.

 

“Patton, you ok? This is the fourth blow you haven’t even tried to parry or dodge,” Roman said, letting his wooden practice sword fall back to his side.

“Sorry. I’ve just been...thinking,” Patton replied, messing with one of the ties on his armour.

“About what?” he asked.

“All my friends. It’s so weird,” he replied, shifting the grip on is sword. Roman sighed.

“Let’s call it quits and go get a snack,” he offered, shrugging off his armour. Patton did the same and handed hiss word over to Roman without a word. It was off putting, to say the least, to see his normally cheery friend looking so down. He could see him trying to smile and joke around as they walked around the village eating their candy, but he clearly didn’t have the amount of pep and energy that he normally had. 

“Did you have a girlfriend?” he asked.

“I’ve never had a girlfriend,” he replied.

“Really? I’d think you would be the type of guy that could get anyone he wanted,” he said, glancing at his friend.

“I didn’t say I’ve never dated,” Patton gave a half-hearted laugh, and Roman felt his heart leap out of his chest. He had realized he had a crush on the deer satyr a while ago, but he never dared to ask him out because he didn’t think he was in to guys, or at least in to Roman, but he was also used to people throwing themselves at his feet to get in to a relationship with him so maybe he wasn’t recognizing the signs, but maybe he had a chance now. Roman tried to shake the thought vomit out of his head, but thanked the stars that it had stayed thought vomit instead of turning in to word vomit. 

“They better have been good to you,” he threatened, and Patton gave another half hearted laugh.

“They were. They were two of the best guys out there,” he replied wistfully, and Roman’s little gay heart leapt even more feverently.

“Then why would they leave such a precious cinnamon bun like you?” he asked, instinctively feeling for the sword sheathed at his hip.

“Our lives just weren’t on the same path. It was for the best. I still mess them,” he shrugged.  _ I’m gay and if you’ll let me I’ll never leave you and I’ll make our lives be on the same path because stars above I am going to protect you with my life and- shut up! He’s having a bad day, this is  _ NOT  _ the time for confessing feelings, Roman, but oh he’s so freaking cute and precious and,  _ Roman warred with himself, trying to corral his feelings in to a manageable bundle. Why did Patton reduce him into a bumbling moron? He had dated people before, but he had never been reduced to word vomit. Close to it, maybe, but not quite.

“Well, if it was for the best. Know that if anyone messes with you, I will personally introduce them to my sword!” he declared, unsheathing his sword and turning it so that it glinted in the late afternoon sun. Patton giggled at that, and Roman felt his heart swell again. Stars above he needed to stop being so freaking adorable! The rest of their walk continued similarly until they finally wound their way back to the house.

 

“Lo, you’ve been pacing for half an hour,” Anx said, glancing at the clock. He was still perched on the table, and his companion was still pacing back and forth. Logan glanced up at the clock and pinched the bridge of his nose before settling his glasses. He gritted his teeth, then sighed and glanced down at his notes before slumping to the ground in sort of a half-sitting half-standing pose. Anx watched him for a couple seconds before slipping in to his cat shift and rubbing against one of his friend’s legs. It wasn’t much, and he really wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he was sick of being unable to do anything. Logan looked down at him, then picked him up and held him against his chest. Anx refrained from clawing him and settled in to his gentle grip. Anx was surprised to feel wetness seeping in to his hoodie, as well as hearing and feeling his uneven breathing, was Logan crying? He kept himself from looking up to check, and the pair sat together until Logan finally set Anx down. 

 

“My apologies, Anx. I seem to have let my emotions get the best of me,” he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. His eyes were red and puffy, so he  _ had  _ been crying. Anx shifted back in to his natural form.

“No, you’re good. How about I pack up here while you go get cleaned up,” he suggested awkwardly. 

“That would be satisfactory. Ensure the samples are properly packed up,” he replied, taking a deep breath.

“Aye aye, captain,” he replied, giving him a two fingered salute. Logan gave him a half smile, then walked out of the room. Anx managed to pack up everything in what he thought was the correct way, although a part of him insisted he had done something wrong. Logan came in just as he was finishing and nodded at the neat stack of tools. 

“Well done. Shall we return to your house?” he asked, picking up the bag of notes and samples.

“Sure,” Anx replied and let the deer centaur lead the way out of the classroom.

“Also, Anx, never show that shift to Patton or you’ll be in it for as long as he can stay with you,” Logan said as they let the front door of the school swing shut behind them. Anx laughed.

“You better warn Roman about that one.”


	12. Balloons and Whiskers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, royality has officially sailed.
> 
> All in all a lot more fluff with a little bit of plot thrown in there.

Logan was working on cleaning up from Roman’s latest prank, which involved a whole bunch of balloons that were somehow blown up so much that they popped when they made contact with his antlers, although that also could have been magic, when he heard a very long prolonged squeal coming from where Patton was working on gathering up the broken balloons around their beds. He turned around with the rubber still draped over his antlers to see what it was, but his brother’s back was turned to him. Then he heard a tiny meow.

“Roman he’s allergic!” he yelled.

“Don’t worry, I’m a balinese cat,” he called back as a fluffy black tail appeared over Patton’s shoulder.

“Of course you would know which cats are hypoallergenic,” Logan grumbled, picking the remains of a red balloon from his antlers.

“Of course! I wouldn’t want to cause any suffering to the best deer satyr in the universe!” Roman called back. Oh stars, did he really say that? Patton just giggled and continued to coo at him. Logan shot Roman a serious look, although he knew the cat wouldn’t be able to see it from behind Patton’s back. 

“Can I pet you?” Patton breathed, excitement dancing in his eyes.

“Why of course, compadre,” he replied, and stretched in to him as the deer satyr began to scratch behind his ears. Roman wondered why he hadn’t done this before with the amount of attention and delight he was getting from Patton. Patton’s hands brushed over the lock of rainbow fur Roman had included in his shift.

“I love you, Roro,” Patton whispered, and the cat immediately disappeared leaving a profusely blushing pj-clad Roman in his lap. Patton immediately started blushing too.

“I-” Roman started, but was cut off by Patton pulling him in to a hug. He stiffened in surprise for half a heart beat before wrapping his wings around the deer satyr.

“I love you,” Roman murmured into Patton’s ear.

“I love you more,” Patton murmured back, “Can I kiss you?” he added, drawing back slightly so that he could look Roman in the face. Roman’s only reply was to close the gap between their faces.

“Feelings,” Logan grunted and tossed a blue balloon in to the trash can.

 

Anx walked in to the room a few seconds later to see Logan struggling with a balloon that managed to get wrapped around one of his hooves and the pair of gays still kissing on the floor.

“What happened?” he asked, staring around the battlefield of broken balloons.

“Roman launched his next prank, then turned in to a cat and they ended up figuring out they’re both gay and they both harbour feelings for each other,” Logan replied, still trying to reach the balloon.

“Wait, how’d you find out Roman was gay?”Anx asked, and Logan’s only reply was to look meaningfully at the pair of rainbow wings and rainbow hair visible in the middle of the room. Anx snickered.

“Hey lovebirds, mind helping with the clean up?” he yelled. Patton, whose antlers were also decorated with colored rubber startled, and the pair looked up at their friends, their blushes possibly deepening even more.

“Of course I will not help! This was my retaliation for the placement of a dead animal inside my chambers,” Roman sniffed.

“I already told you, it’s not a dead animal,” Logan retorted, surprised that the smell of the flowers was still managing to persist.

“Come on, can’t you help just a little bit?” Patton pleaded. 

“I suppose, but only for you, my dear,” Roman replied.

“Please explain to me how you went from being completely unaware of each other’s feelings to pet names and other icky feelingsy stuff in the span of less than a few minutes,” Logan said, and the other three burst out laughing. They all quickly fell to cleaning after Anx helped Logan get the balloon off of his hoof, with Roman providing the entertainment by belting out all the songs for one of the most popular musicals, occasionally joined by Patton or Virgil. Logan just sighed and shook his head as he lost count of how long he spent pulling broken balloons from his antlers, the floor, and the furniture. 

 

At last the living room was cleaned up, or at least it appeared to be clean. Logan didn’t doubt that there were still some bits of balloons littered around in sneaky spots.

“Now, I am going to go continued my research,” Logan said, gathering his samples.

“Hold up, let me get a couple things from my room,” Anx said, running off down the hallway, as Roman stretched his wings. 

“Well, those sword skills aren’t getting any sharper by just standing around, are they, love?” he asked. Patton giggled at hearing the ‘love’ and nodded. Logan just rolled his eyes and gave an inaudible groan.

“I’m ready!” he said, signing ‘sweetie’. Roman wasn’t sure what he had signed, he knew  _ duende  _ not sign, but he assumed it was something good by the glitter in Patton’s eyes.

“I shall retrieve our most valued equipment!” he declared, beaming at the deer satyr before he shifted forms and bounded down the hall as an actual deer with rainbow antlers. Anx narrowly dodged him as he emerged from the hallway with a bag clutched to his chest.

“All set,” he said, and Logan gave him a nod before they headed out together. Roman emerged soon after in his natural form with the bag of sword fighting equipment over his shoulder, and they headed out with their chatter filling the air.

 

“Do you know of any other deer populations?” Anx asked as Logan pondered the question of what exactly made the “snow” react aloud again.

“There are villages in a wide variety of habitats. It’s possible some were not affected by the “snow”. We should come up with a better name to refer to it by,” he replied, adjusting his glasses.

“How about, white powder substance of death?” he joked in reply. Logan shot him a look that somehow encapsulated death itself.

“Kidding, kidding. Wanna start by making contact with some other deer?” he laughed.

“The logical place to start would be by locating some of these villages,” Logan replied.

“To the library?” Anx asked, raising his eyebrows. Logan just pointed to the cart of portal openers, which they could use to access the information even more quickly.

“To the portal cart,” he corrected him. Anx snorted back a laugh, and they retrieved a portal for each of them. It didn’t take long before they had marked out where several of them were, then it was back to research to get as much information as possible before they headed out the next morning. 

 

Patton ducked out of the way of Roman’s sword, narrowly dodging the blow. 

“Excellent! Again,” he said, and they went back to the stances they had before. Patton stuck out his tongue a little in concentration as Roman swung his sword again. He whirled out of the way with a tiny yelp as it caught on the back of his armour. 

“A tad too slow, again, you can do it!” he called as they took their stances again. Roman finally called for a stop when Patton had managed to dodge three consecutive blow.

“It seems to just keep getting harder!” Patton said huffing for breath.

“Well, I’m going harder on you. I know you’d do well on your own, but no boyfriend of mine shall ever be incapable in any situation if I can help it!” he declared, “We are boyfriends, right?” he added in a stage whisper.

“Of course!” Patton giggled.

“Well, we should call it a wrap and get you a treat for being the best boyfriend in the universe!” he declared, pulling his armour off. 

“No, I’m going to buy you a treat for being the best boyfriend in the universe,” Patton replied, mirroring Roman’s movements with a touch more wiggling.

“No, you’re the best,” he protested.

“You’re the bestest,” he replied.

“You’re the best bestest,” he shot back. They continued to argue in a similar fashion as they headed packed up the sword fighting equipment and treated each other to treats of their choice. 

 

“Anx, you haven’t used whatever you grabbed in your bag,” Logan noticed as they began to pack up for the night.

“Oh, yeah. It’s materials for our next prank,” Anx replied, removing several seemingly random items from his bag.

“Explain,” he said, looking down at them.

“Gladly,” he replied, a sly grin coming across his face. He quickly explained the steps. Logan gave a small laugh.

“He’s going to be mad,” he said, “Patton, too, probably.”

“What’s a little bit of drama for a quality prank?” Anx asked. 

“Insignificant,” he replied, and they hi-fived each other before heading out the door, ready to enact their evil plan.

 


	13. Jello and Observations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plot and fluff, the perfect combination!

“LOGAN!” Roman screamed from down the hallway. Patton looked over at the deer centuar, who was sipping a cup of milk while glancing over his notes with a not-very-well-concealed smug smile on his face. 

“What is it, Roman?” he called back without looking up from his notes. The corner of his mouth twitched, and Patton fixed his dad look in face.

“What is this, he says!” he yelled back, running out with his sword, which was encased in a jello-like substance. Patton’s dad face immediately turned on to his brother, who was still trying to master the tiny grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Logan,” Patton said threateningly.

“Yes?” he asked, turning his almost-neutral face to his brother.

“Why did you do that?” he asked.

“Patton, we are currently engaged in a prank war,” he replied simply.

“That’s no excuse to mess with his stuff!” he protested.

“One might also say that is no reason to fill this room with balloons or water cups,” he replied. Patton’s mouth opened and closed as he grasped for words. Finally he marched over to Logan and grabbed one of his human ears, then started to try to drag him towards Roman.

“Patton, our height difference would not allow me to walk and for you to hold on to my ear at the same time,” he sighed, and gently grabbed a hold of his hand to try to dislodge his grip.

“Well get up and go stand by Roman, or else,” he glowered to the best of his abilities.

“No offense, but I feel as though I’m being threatened by a cupcake,” he sighed.

“Go stand by Roman, now,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“You do not hold an authority position over me,” he replied.

“Yes I do! I’m older than you!” he shot back.

“By 8 months!” he shot back. Roman was just standing and watching them in a mixture of amusement and confusion by now.

“I’m still older than you!” he replied, his voice rising.

“Well, isn’t this nice?” Anx asked from the corner, leaning his wings against the wall, “What’d I miss?”

“Logan cruelly encased my precious belongings in jello and refuses to apologize for it, and Patton was helping me, and now they’re in an argument where Patton is trying to get Logan to come over here, and apparently Patton’s the older sibling by 8 months,” Roman quickly replied. 

“Wait, so you’re not siblings?” Anx asked.

“We are!” Patton squealed in what passed as an offended voice.

“He means we are brothers,” Logan replied helpfully.

“Ok, but, weren’t we supposed to be heading out soon?” he asked. Logan glanced at the clock.

“1 minute ago, to be precise,” he replied. 

“You’re not getting off so easily!” Patton and Roman called at the same time. Logan only blinked and gathered his stuff before walking out the door. Anx snorted and scrambled to catch up.

 

Anx and Logan immediately hi-fived each other on the prank as soon as the door had swung shut.

“How many prank wars have you won?” Anx asked as they walked to the portal.

“This is the first prank war I am actively participating in,” Logan replied. His companion raised his eyebrow skeptically.

“There are a lot of resources out there,” he said in explanation.

“And you want me to believe that’s the only reason you’ve flawlessly pulled off three pranks in a row?” he replied.

“You helped with the first and third, and the second only consisted of hiding flowers in Roman’s room,” he replied.

“Uh huh,” Anx grunted.

“Besides, I said  _ actively participated in.  _ This doesn’t mean I haven’t given aide to others in prank wars or watched them,” he added.

“How many?” he snorted.

“High schoolers in my village are an interesting bunch, and I helped an acquaintance of mine in a prank war against his brother in exchange for materials for an experiment when I was younger,” he replied. Anx snorted, then burst out laughing.

“You exchanged help on a prank for materials for an experiment,” he said at last.

“Yes, I do not see how that is humorous,” he replied.

“How old were you?” he asked.

“1o, I believe,” he replied.

“See, most 10 year old boys would be out planning pranks, playing sports, or crowding around the newest game, however all Logan wanted to do was discover awesome phenomena,” Anx said dramatically. Logan gave him a sideways look with a smile on his face before ducking in to the portal to visit the first village.

 

“How much time did this take?” Patton asked, looking around Roman’s room. All of his theater props and sword fighting equipment were encased in different colors of jello, not to mention the post-it notes decorating almost every square inch of his bed, floor, and other furniture.

“I would like to know myself,” he sniffed and pulled up a handful of the squares of paper, crunching them in my hands.

“Clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere,” he sang in an effort to lighten the mood as he pulled up some of the notes with considerably less wrinkling than his boyfriend had. Roman snorted disdainfully, but he was soon singing along to the childish tune as they worked on pulling the colorful paper off. It was kind of relaxing, Roman noted, although he would have much rather been swinging his sword around. He gave an silent annoyed huff and continued to clean up his room as Patton started singing a song that he was about 90% sure was from a kids show. He hummed along to the tune, annoyed that he didn’t know the lyrics to join in. The morning turned in to afternoon without a break from the work, and it wasn’t until the door swung open that they even realized how late it was getting. 

“How’s the cleaning going?” Anx smirked, glancing around the room.

“What do you think, Sunshine?” Roman sniffed.

“Come on you two,” Patton protested, swinging his hand lightly at Roman’s head, purposefully missing by a mile.

“Indeed. We have good news, we’ve figured out what it reacts to,” Logan said, also glancing in satisfaction at the messy room.

“Spill it then, Specs,” Roman huffed.

“Gladly. I won’t bore you with the details, but when the right combination of phosphorous, oxygen, and carbon combine with the correct magical signature, it creates the reaction necessary for the “snow” to turn in to a sort of teleportation pad. I suspect it was the carbon aspect that kept us safe from being teleported alongside the other deer villages,” he replied. 

“Great, now can we finally get out of here and go save everyone?” Roman huffed.

“Safety precautions first,” he replied.

“And what might those be? We were fine before, weren’t we?” he replied in a mocking tone.

“There’s no harm in preparing for what might happen. I will need your help in preparing, though,” he replied, his tone implying needing help from Roman was a bad thing.

“How long will you need me?” he asked suspiciously.

“The more time per day you spend helping me, the faster we can leave,” he replied evenly.

“I guess the prank war’s on hold then,” he grumbled.

“I suppose so,” he replied evenly.

“Don’t think that’s a good thing, calculator watch. I’ll hit you with the prank to end all pranks when we are done!” he threatened.

“Ok. I’m off to go cook dinner,” Logan sighed, then headed off to the kitchen.

“Yeah you better run,” he yelled after him. Logan just rolled his eyes.

 


	14. Suits and Forests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff, a little bit of angst, and a little bit of plot.

“What exactly are we making that requires fleece, rubber, and thread?” Roman stared down at the rolls of materials Logan had spread around them. 

“Onsies,” he replied, digging a sewing needle out of his bag.

“We don’t need rubber for that,” he sniffed. Logan rolled his eyes and pulled out his journal, then flipped it open to a page where a diagram of a onsie was sketched out and labeled.

“You just one first place in the worst handwriting contest,” Roman said disdainfully, poking the roll of rubber.

“The fleece is so that it’s not too uncomfortable, the rubber is for protection, and the thread is to hold it all together,” he replied.

“We’re not making onsies, we’re making flipping hazmat suits,” he huffed, poking the rubber again.

“I suppose you could say that,” he sighed and adjusted his glasses.

“And how are we supposed to breathe in there?” he asked.

“Ventilation holes,” he replied, pointing at his diagram again.

“For someone who claims to be ready for everything, you didn’t think about whether the air could be poisoned,” he grumbled.

“Even the deadliest gasses have at least a one minute period of time between exposure and death,” he replied.

“When do you have time to research this stuff, and more importantly, why?” he shot, fanning out his wings to give himself a larger silhouette.

“Are you going to start working on the protective suits?” he asked.

“That’s not an answer, pocket protector,” Roman shot back, flapping his wings once.

“There are 24 hours in a day. If we dedicate 8 hours to sleep, 2 to eating, and another 8 to hygiene and exercise, that leaves 6 hours of time to be dedicated to work, research, and other activities,” he sighed.

“Wow, you’ve really got it all worked out, huh, Logan,” he grumbled. The other paused for a second.

“Yes,” he replied. Roman gave the other a look that encompassed the word ‘really’.

“Are you going to make these or not?” Logan asked, gesturing at the materials.

“Oh absolutely,” he replied, had he really said the prank war was on hold yesterday?  _ Ha, I’ll show you, past me,  _ he sniffed, then bent over his work as Logan went off to do who-knows-what.

 

“Hey, Kiddo! I was just about to go on a walk, wanna come with?” Patton asked, knocking on the door Roman had told him was Anx’s.

“Sure, Pat. Just a sec,” he heard the shapeshifter’s muffled reply. A few seconds later the door opened to reveal Anx.  _ Is it just me, or does his eyeshadow look darker than usual?  _ Patton wondered, then answered himself in his head,  _ Of course it’s just me! It’s not like there’s four people over here. _

Anx followed him silently out of the house, dragging the toes of his shoes over the ground. 

“You doin’ ok?” he asked, turning around to face Anx while still attempting to move. Place emphasis on the word ‘attempting.’

“Watch your step,” he grunted back, declining to answer.

“Come on, Anx, how you doin’?” he asked, stopping so he could still face Anx.

“Well I’m doing just fine,” he sang back in an overly cheerful voice. Patton gave him a bright smile in return.

“So, where’s your favorite place to walk?” He continued, the cheer bouncing back in to his voice.

_ I lied, I’m dying inside,  _ Anx added in his head. “There’s a little overhang that’s kind of pretty,” he shrugged 

“Which direction?” Patton immediately asked, turning in to the forest on one side of their current path. Anx silently led the way off the well-worn footpath, ducking below low hanging branches. Patton looked around, craning his neck to try to look at all the trees and life that filled the forest. Anx finally stopped at a small creek. It trickled around the pebbles, then ducked down a small cliff to collect in to a tiny puddle. The branches of the trees interlocked above them, breaking the sunlight into little dapples dotting the grass and making the stream shine. The lower branches and sparse undergrowth seemed to weave together to shrink the entire world in to this single, roughly 5 square meter area. Anx shucked off his shoes and sat on the edge of the tiny cliff, if one could call it that because of it’s tiny half of a foot height. He let his feet dip in to the puddle, feeling the water wash over them. Patton had become invested in a small clump of mushrooms sprouting near the base of a tree, watching how a little corner of sunlight wavered over their fleshy, pale brown tops. 

“How do you ever leave?” Patton breathed, finally tearing himself away from the fungi. 

“Someone’s gotta make sure Ro doesn’t do something too stupid. ‘Sides, there’s no food out here,” he shrugged back, not turning to face the deer satyr. Patton blinked at the purple hair adorning the shapeshifter’s head. It was near identical to his own, and a similar cut, too. 

“Do you ever think some things are just, connected?” he asked, sitting down next to him.

“Pat, I am not in the mood for an existential crisis right now,” Anx replied, shooting him a sideways glare.

“Is anyone ever in the mood for an existential crisis?” he asked in the same soft voice, looking off in to the trees.

“Ok, who are you and what have you done with Patton?” he snorted, lightly pushing him. They laughed and chatted a bit more before Patton was drawn off by a brilliant blue bird sitting in the branches of a nearby tree. Anx finally managed to drag Patton back to one of the more well-worn trails, where he promptly began making a bunch of tree and leaf related puns. 

 

“If this is generosity, then you must be our  _ tomte _ , and  _ Tik _ iday came early this year, ho, ho, ho, happy  _ Tik _ iday everyone, let’s all gather around the fire, eating  _ lussekatts,  _ and help make the yule goat, and hide in our beds and dream of the  _ julbord,  _ I don’t know why I’m speaking in a deer village accent now, because it’s  _ Tik _ iday. Don’t forget to kiss under the  _ tik _ eltoe,” Roman took a brief pause for breath.

“Deer villages have many different accents depending on the area, and even I don’t have the vocabulary to describe this,” Logan quickly took the opportunity to interject, but Roman didn’t seem to hear him.

“You’re running out into the snow, maybe making yourself a little snow _ tik _ , it comes to life, wow! The magic of the season. And all of us have a snow _ tik _ fight, I’m go-I’m running with this metaphor, ‘cause I’m on it now,” he continued.

“You are behaving like a child,” Logan sighed.

“No one can  _ tik  _ and day like you, Logan,” he quickly shot back. 

“What is happening?” Patton asked, looking at the pair. They stood facing each other, matching glares plastered on to their faces. Roman was somehow balanced on a roll of rubber, and what appeared to be a onsie lay between them.

“Why don’t you ask  _ tik tomte  _ here,” he sniffed.

“Language!” Patton quickly shot back.

“I asked Roman to make the protective suits for our journey while I went to finish other preparations. When I came back the one for me was made with the lining, covered in burrs, on the outside. When I pointed this out to Roman, it quickly escalated in to an argument, then in to an angry rant by him,” Logan replied, gesturing disdainfully at Roman.

“Roman, apologize to Logan,” Patton said, looking up at him.

“He was the one who started this all,” he sniffed.

“Actually, from my perspective you started this by playing the music after I expressly asked you not to do that. This is a very pointless and subjective argument to get in to, though,” Logan replied.

“You blocked off the kitchen.”

“You abuse your fire power to dispose of unwanted food. Now, shall we stop before another full blown argument erupts?” he replied.

“Roman, apologize to logan for ruining his suit, and Logan, apologize to Roman for ruining his stuff over the past few days,” Patton said firmly.

“Roman has also launched pranks against me, this included,” he replied.

“I will make a ‘this is our get-along shirt’ and force you to wear it if you do not apologize,” he threatened.

“Roman, I apologize for not offering more help in making the suits,” Logan offered with a small shake of his head.

“Sorry for wasting materials,” Roman grunted. Patton looked between them for beat, then decided that it was close enough.

“If y’all are done acting like toddlers,” Anx began.

“I was not acting like a toddler,” Logan interjected, above the offended noises coming from Roman and protest from Patton.

“Whatever. Come look outside.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you like my blending of the customary and metric systems?
> 
> Also, first person to figure out which language I use to swear in and the culture I'm basing Roman's edited little rant on gets some sort of prize.


	15. Carpet and Purpose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, yeah, Royality's a thing, um, take some plot, too

The four crowded around the window, jostling to get a good view. Snow coated the ground in a circle around their house. It extended about 10 feet out from the front porch, with a clear space around the neighboring houses, all of which had a path to outside the circle, and made it look as if the house had just been popped in to place on a modeling set and the modeler was still working on blending it into the set. 

“That is not accidental,” Logan was the first to break the silence. The sun smiled as if taunting them with the packed dirt of the roads just beyond leaping distance.  _ Well, I can probably jump it, and both Roman and Anx could fly out, but that would leave Patton stranded in the house,  _ Logan commented in his head.

“Wow, I could have never figured that out,” Anx commented before Roman could sneer back.

“Play nice,” Patton warned, wagging a finger at him.

“Well, shall we evacuate?” Roman asked, cracking his fingers.

“You and Anx can fly, and I can likely jump the distance required, but Patton has no way out,” Logan sighed and adjusted his glasses.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked with a mischievous grin.

“Yes, what are you smiling about?” he replied, giving his head a small shake.

“You forgot about the flying carpets,” Roman said.

“Those only exist in cartoons, carpets can’t fly,” he replied.

“I shall prove you wrong!” he yelled, then raced off to his room.

“You jump first,” Anx grunted. Logan looked after the older of the two shapeshifters for a beat, then shook his head and opened the front doors. He backed up and took a running start, landing safely, albeit not gracefully, outside the circle of snow. He turned to watch as Roman lay a large carpet out on the porch.

“Are you ready,  _ mi amor? _ He asked, bowing and holding out a hand to Patton. He giggled before bowing back and taking his hand. A few seconds later Anx was grumbling something under his breath as the shapeshifters flew the carpet over the circle.

“How was your flight?” Roman asked, helping Patton up. 

“Amazing!” he yelled, earning a beam from Roman. 

“Don’t expect me to do that again,” Anx warned, rubbing his shoulders.

“See, nerd?” Roman smirked, ignoring his younger brother.

“But the carpet didn’t fly. You and Anx were flying whilst carrying the carpet, which is a very different thing,” Logan replied. He replied with a glare, and probably would have continued if it weren’t for Patton.

“Shouldn’t we get all our things out, too?” he asked.

“We should have thought through this before leaving. We’re essentially ready, except for that, which shouldn’t take long to repair,” Logan replied, gesturing at the edge of his suit that was barely visible through the door.

“So, we’re flying back in?” Patton asked. 

“Nope, nope, nope, nope,” Anx quickly said, throwing his hands into the air and walking away.

“I’ll help you,” Joan said, landing neatly next to Roman.

“What’s the catch?” Roman asked, his eyes narrowing.

“You admit my wings are prettier than yours,” they replied. 

“They are not!” he protested, lifting one rainbow-colored wing so that the sunlight glinted off of it. 

“Not in your natural wings,” Joan scoffed, “Come on,” they prodded. 

“I’ll just carry Patton in myself,” he sniffed, picking up Patton princess style, to the delight of the deer satyr. Joan shouted something that Patton shouted ‘language’ at, then flew away again.

“If you ever get them to give up swearing for a day I’ll-” whatever Roman was saying was cut off by a crash as Logan landed next to them. 

“Antlers don’t even have nerves,” he grumbled under his breath, rubbing the base of one of his antlers. 

“Can you like, not ruin a good moment?” Roman said, his frustration barely reined in as he set Patton down.

“I was not aware I was interrupting anything. Are you going to redo that?” he asked and pointed at the lump of fabric at his hooves. Roman rolled his eyes.

“Saving the world, one lump of fleece and rubber at a time,” he grumbled. 

“Can I help?” Patton asked. 

“Nah, this is all for me,” Anx replied, landing in the living room with two bulging bags, both of which had candy visible on the top, and another candy stuck in his mouth.

“That’s not healthy,” Logan said, rapidly clenching and unclenching his fists to try to rein in his temper. 

“We haven’t had sugar in almost a month, lighten up,” he shrugged.

“You are  _ not  _ getting all that to yourself!” Roman yelled and launched himself at his younger brother. Within seconds the trio was sitting on the floor while Logan glared down at them. 

 

It was the next morning before everything was done. 

“This looks ridiculous,” Roman complained.

“It looks like protection,” Logan objected, practically dragging him out onto the “snow”. Anx was crouched behind a bush and Patton was trying to get the head of his suit to cooperate. Logan held three vials, which he had explained had the mixture that would allow the snow to react in it. 

“Anx, you have to come out from behind that bush,” he sighed.

“Why didn’t you make it big enough for my hoodie?” Anx asked, directing this question at Roman.

“Suffer,” was his only replied, and his remark earned a light elbow in the side from Patton. 

“The faster we finish, the faster you can change out of that,” he sighed. Anx grumbled a wordless protest, but he obeyed. Logan opened up the vials and let them spill out onto the snow. A few seconds passed, then another few.

“You tried, you failed, let’s go to sleep,” Anx said, starting to walk off.

“A, it’s 2 pm. B, no,” Logan replied, pulling him back and disturbing the tiny stain where he had poured the vials out. The world immediately went dark.

 


	16. Oil and Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst at long last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate finals. I think it rubbed off in this chapter.

Logan blinked, trying to figure out where he was. He could feel some sort of cold liquid, so somehow the suits had been affected, which definitely wasn’t good. He groped around hor his glasses although darkness was all that was visible. It felt odd to be awake without the familiar ornament. His hand finally latched around it and he dried them on his shirt before putting them on. He stayed where he was, trying fruitlessly to pierce the darkness. He finally gave up and felt around again. All he could feel was the smooth feel of the floor beneath his folded legs, the cold liquid from his back down, and empty space above and around him.  
“Patton?” he called into the darkness. Silence answered him. The silence was disturbing. He was used to the small rustle of the wind going through the leaves, the far-off laughter of other people, and other small sounds. There was utterly nothing here. He stood slowly. If you got lost you were supposed to stay where you were to make it easier for others to find you, but he doubted anyone else was coming to find him. Somehow a small aura of light formed around him, illuminating the shiny black surface of the liquid. Tiny flakes of snow began to fall and dissipate in the air. His deer set of ears flattened against his head and he crossed his arms in front of his chest as he pressed on.

“Ro?” Patton yelled into the darkness. It was cold. Some sort of liquid had come up to his neck, “Logan? Anx? Anyone?” he screamed. He had somehow lost his glasses and the suit Roman and Logan had worked so hard on making and designing respectively.  
“His puns are infuriating,” Logan’s voice floated through the darkness. It held a hard edge of bitterness that could only be hinted at in his normal voice.  
“He’s so clueless,” Anx droned. Patton could almost imagine him picking at his chipped black fingernail polish as he said it. Wait, Anx only painted them with a clear thing that tasted bad so he wouldn’t chew on them, right?  
“I know right! He’s so utterly harmless, he can’t even strike a roll of paper. It’s maddening!” Roman yelled.  
“G-Guys?” Patton whimpered, reaching for the ends of his cardigan. He instinctively began to nibble on one end. It was a habit he’d had as a little kid and hadn’t managed to drop until he was 10. He didn’t even notice he was doing it until the liquid washed over his tongue. He immediately spat it out, but in the process lowered his head and the liquid sloshed over it. He tried to pull his head out of the liquid, had it come up higher? He could barely get his nose out of the water. He tried to kick his legs and swim, but the liquid thickened and slowed his movements until it was useless. Logan, Roman, and Anx’s voices floated around him, taunting him. He couldn’t yell. He couldn’t move his body. The liquid lapped at the base of his antlers. He could get a breath in if he timed it right. Maybe.

Roman tried to spread his wings, only to find them nonexistent. He tried to shapeshift, to no avail.  
“Oh come on! We’re on a magic rescue mission and I can’t even give myself claws? Don’t tell me you took my sword, too,” he yelled into the darkness. His voice echoed back at him as he reached for his sword, which was, in fact, gone.  
“You’re going to pay for this maleficent force which I can’t see and really don’t know the name of or the motives or your tragic backstory but I’ll still kill you and I so wasn’t imagining stabbing you in the spleen,” he yelled. His voice came back again.  
“Oh when did this get here?” he wondered, feeling the freezing liquid which had come up to the bottom of his ribcage. He tapped his hand against it, feeling it splash. Was it just him or had it risen half an inch?  
“No matter, I shall find and rescue my deer friends, then everyone else you have captured, you foul creature!” he yelled. His voice bounced back at him, sounding extremely stupid. But what if he couldn’t save his friends? What if they were already trapped somewhere? Or drowning? Especially Patton and Anx, they were tiny! What if they were being threatened by the magic creature and he wasn’t there to save them? The liquid rose as Roman leapt in a random direction, pretending to know it would lead to one of his friends.

Anx opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by darkness, cut off from air, and freezing, and the suit was gone, and no one was there. Who was screaming? Oh, it was him. He snapped his mouth shut. Swim, swimming was good. There had to be air somewhere. But where? What is he swam down or sideways? He pantomimed taking a deep breath, although it didn’t really help. Bubbles, bubbles went up, right? He let out a tiny bit of his precious air supply and began swimming in the “bubble direction”. That wasn’t a thing. Well, neither was “snow” that reacted to itself and a very specific combination of elements and most definitely created by some evil force, right? He would have laughed if he had the air to do so. His lungs were screaming and pantomiming breaths on their own now, trying to draw in air from his sealed nose and mouth, both of which were trying to unseal and deliver precious, precious oxygen to his muscles. His vision was turning purple at the edges. Wasn’t it supposed to turn black? Whatever. He kept trying to press on. Finally he remembered he had wings and began to use them to help him swim. Was it worth it to try to turn into a merman? Whatever, he was one now. His tail pumped along as purple crept close to the front of his vision. His lungs really didn’t like where this was headed. He didn’t really have time for lucid thoughts, as everything was saying DON’T YOU DARE TAKE A BREATH AND KEEP SWIMMING TO STAY ALIVE, or at least, that was what his conscious mind was focusing on. The other part said TAKE A BREATH BEFORE YOU SUFFOCATE YOU IDIOT AND STOP WASTING YOUR PRECIOUS OXYGEN BY SWIMMING. He finally came to the surface and took a single breath before hacking up the liquid he had swallowed. His lungs and mouth burned, he had a headache, why did everything hurt? Because you just nearly drowned, idiot, he answered his own question, and then he was laughing, laughing, laughing. His tail slowly moved to keep his head above water. He didn’t notice that he was crying until he was holding his sides as if that would hold his head together. When the shuddering finally stopped, long after he had run out of tears, he opened his eyes. A tiny aura of light surrounded him he took a deep breath and closed his eyes again. He carefully imagined the aura of light and picked the strands out, weaving them into a raft beneath him. When he opened his eyes, there was the raft, radiating light. Well, what do you know? Roman’s stupid little idea had worked. So he had resorted to it as a desperate attempt to calm himself down. Why hadn’t he done breathing exercises? Whatever. He had a raft. He closed his eyes and wove an engine and rudder, then started it up and and held the rudder steady as he cruised into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who has 10 fingers and somehow has no idea how they're going to end this story?


	17. Voices and Seas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess what folks? I somehow haven't dissolved this all into fluff yet!

Logan had plenty of time to think as he walked along. His thoughts circled and chased each other around without any particular focus or direction, far from his usual pattern of thinking. The snow fell more quickly now, some of it survived to rest on top of the black liquid. He didn’t feel any dip in the floor, but it felt like the liquid was rising. There were whispers now, breaking the silence. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, it was as if whoever had made the “snow” was taunting him. His skin crawled with the feeling of being watched. He tried to look around, but the aura of light was diminishing. Now there were shapes of all different colors dancing around the edges of his vision, but whenever he turned to look at them they disappeared in to the surrounding darkness. Was he going crazy? No, people who went insane still thought they were sane, right? He began to question even this. It was giving him a headache. The liquid was lapping at the edge of his tie now. If it continued to rise he would have to swim. When was the last time he had swam? Had he ever swam? He pressed his eyes tightly closed and stopped.

“Poor Logan, overlooking so many key parts in his quaint little research,” a voice drifted through the darkness. It was high and squeaky, more sound than words.

“Nothing like this has happened before, it’s natural that we wouldn’t be completely equipped to handle it,” Logan assured himself aloud.

“But to not see the problems at all?” the voice asked. It was echoing now, as if the area had shrunk down to a small cave.

“I’m 14, of course I’m going to overlook things. Everyone overlooks things,” he argued. His voice didn’t echo.

“But wouldn’t it make sense to get help from someone then? Someone who actually knows what they’re doing?” the voice asked. Logan felt something scaly and hard brush his chin, but when he lifted his hand nothing was there.

 

Roman started as a tiny aura of light blinked on around him.

“Nice,” he said, reaching out and entertaining an idea of grabbing the light and weaving it into a torch. It obeyed his idea. He grinned and dropped it, watching as it splashed against the darkness below and reformed with the rest of his light. He wove a sword, then wings, then sharp canine teeth, then new torch.

“Now I’m ready for the rescue mission,” he grinned, showing off his new, glowing fangs. He walked on faster now, waving his torch as if he would catch some shadow creature. He had lost track of the false starts by the time he came to a wall of blackness. It was covered by what looked like moss. He ran his hand over it, then found a crag. He created a sheath for his sword and let the torch go back to the dim aura of light around him. He moved slowly, inching forward, then he suddenly laughed and let go, letting his wings buoy him.

“This is much better,” he yelled to the darkness, flying up beside the darkness. Was the liquid rising with him? It remained at his rib cage although he should have been flying far over it by now. He kicked his legs and they stuck together.

“What the-” he whispered, striking the liquid with his sword. It dissipated into light. He pulled all the light to him, even letting his fangs and sheath go into his hands. He held it to the dark liquid, trying to squint past it. He sent a strand of light down into it, only for it to bounce back up as if the liquid were solid glass. He quickly reformed his wings and flew higher. The liquid followed him.

 

“1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,” Anx tried to sing. If one of Roman’s seemingly stupid ideas worked, maybe others would. He wasn’t sure whether her really believed that, but it was better than being left completely alone with his thoughts. Nothing happened, maybe it was just because he had a horrendous singing voice. Roman’s singing voice had all the charm of a fresh spring day. Anx’s had all the charm of an ancient grandpa yelling at kids to get off his lawn. Ok, maybe he didn’t need to be so mean towards ancient grandpas yelling at people. They were rare, and extremely funny when it happened to other people. Anx laughed at the absurdity of these thoughts. Here he was on a supposed rescue mission, lost in some unfamiliar landscape, and he was thinking about ancient grandpas. He yawned. Sitting on a boat was surprisingly tiring. He adjusted his sitting position, then summoned a map.

“Ah yes, we’ll arrive right on time, captain,” he said in his deepest voice, then threw the map out and laughed.

“Maybe I’m going insane,” he whispered to himself. “Hey! You mind giving me a sign so I know if I’m going insane so I can reel it in and stop going insane?” He yelled at the darkness before rolling over and losing himself in a mixture of laughter and tears. He was so not made for this. He rolled over and pushed his tears out of his eyes.

“Cold is this foreign sea, far are your arms from me, long will this mission be, floating on top of darkness, floating on top of darkness,” he sang, this time very purposefully off key and creaky. He lay down on his stomach and sighed.

“Note to self, don’t let yourself be talked to any rescue missions in the future,” he muttered. 


	18. Darkness and Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman's turn with the voice!

Logan kept walking, trying to shake that brief encounter from his thoughts, but it clung to him like a wet shirt. Was the darkness turning blue now? He closed his eyes, counted to ten, then opened them again. It was definitely blue now. He started as his hoof struck emptiness instead of the smooth floor. His instincts quickly kicked in and he was swimming, barely. He tried to slow his breathing, which was now coming in quick gasps. He nearly screamed when his hoof hit something and made him lose his rhythm. He swam in slow circles for a moment to try to steady his breathing. He found the object again, then tried to reach down to grab it. He wasn’t able to stay floating and in one place at the same time. He paused for a moment. Was figuring out what this object was that important?  _ Yes, yes it is. It could give you clues as to how this place works or it could be someone else who didn’t figure out how to swim,  _ he answered himself. Anxiety clutched him at the thought of sinking to grab whatever this object was. He fought to steady his breathing again, swimming in slow circles. He located the object again, then took another deep breath and let himself sink as he felt for a way to grab whatever it was. Stars he hated this. He had to fight himself to keep from trying to get back to the surface for air. Finally his hand found what felt like an arm and he let his legs kick into action. He waited on the surface to catch his breath before lifting the object above the surface. The liquid clung to its surface, dripping down by tiny drops. Odd, the liquid had easily fallen off of his head when he had surfaced. He pushed some of it off of whatever it was that he held and watched as it streamed down his arm and into the sea of the liquid. He cleaned the liquid away as best as he could with his hand, watching as the shape of a human became clear, then an arm was uncovered. Seconds later he had cleared it away from the person’s face. He nearly stopped swimming.

 

He could breathe. He could scream. Did he want to scream? Should he scream? There were hands. How many hands? Who was the owner of the hands? He was missing something. What was he missing? How did he know? Echoes. 

 

Roman screamed and lashed out at the figure, only for it to disappear. He fought for breath, skidding to a stop on top of a plateau.

“Show yourself you cowardly beast!” he screamed to the darkness, his sword flying to his hand. 

“Oh so  _ I’m  _ cowardly? Who’s the one who let a nerd prepare and check while they just pulled pranks?” a voice purred.

“I was training Patton, besides, let the nerds figure out how to get here,” Roman scoffed.

“But wouldn’t it have been so easy just to go back to the swamp? If you did, you might have gotten here while everyone was still alive,” it purred.

“They’re still alive!” he yelled, more to himself than the voice.

“Oh, poor Ro Ro. You know, everyone secretly hates you. They just pretend not to so they don’t hurt such a _ prestigious _ figure’s feelings,” it chuckled. 

“You’re a filthy liar!” he shrieked. 

“Am I? Am I really, Prince Roman?” it replied. Roman could almost hear the sneer on its face.

“Yes! Stop hiding and show yourself!” he yelled.

“Ok~”

 

Why was the darkness red now? Virgil sat up and squinted, trying to see beyond the tiny aura of light, right when the boat ran in to a wall. 

“Well that’s just dandy,” he muttered, then glared at the cave in front of him. It practically begged to be explored. 

“Onwards we go,” he grumbled, leaving the raft where it was and climbing in to the cave. He was about two feet in when the raft dissolved and returned to the aura of light surrounding him. 

“Well that’s handy,” he muttered to himself. Was someone screaming outside? Or was it farther inside the cave? Or was the sound just a figment of his imagination? He shrugged and pressed onward. The sound didn’t fade or get stronger, as if whatever was making it was moving at the exact same pace as he was and the cave was a straight passageway, which it wasn’t. It was littered with little nooks and crannies. His feet brushed over little dips. Somehow he only just realized that the liquid was inside the cave too and came almost to his shoulders. Weird, he hadn’t felt the cave sloping downward? He shrugged it off and continued. 


	19. Scale and Wander

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess who started three new series instead of working on this? In my defense one of them was meant to be a one-shot.

Logan stared down at Patton. He was breathing normally at least, thank the stars. 

“Patton?” he said, smoothing the hair away from his brother’s face. He didn’t respond. Logan shook him, but he still did nothing but flop limply in his arms. He hugged Patton close and started to swim off, only to trip over his own hooves. The liquid had drained quickly, and now it was barely brushing his ergot. He half-wondered why it felt so weird for it to be lapping at his pasterns. He sighed and carefully shifted Patton until he could scratch his withers without dropping him. He shifted his brother again and set off again. His stifles were beginning to ache with the constant work, but he pressed on. Perhaps getting more physical exercise would be advantageous. He tried to go on at least one short walk a day, but school and research got in the way a lot of the time. He glanced down at Patton’s form. They needed to find Roman and Virgil then figure out a way to leave. And quickly.

 

Roman wavered. It was such a familiar face. One of the boys he’d had a quick fling with, and the one who came closest to reducing him to the complete and utter mess he was with Patton. When Roman flirted with this boy he’d at least had a sixth of his brain cells able to come up with charming responses. He was a naga and traveled with his tribe. They had stopped in town when Roman was just starting to come into his own and accept his sexuality(never mind that was about a year and a half ago. It might have well been a decade and a half ago). His torso rose with the grace of a snake, and his muscular tail coiled down around him. Fangs glinted in his mouth, and more scales dusted his face.

“So much  _ more _ courageous now that you’re faced with my absolutely  _ atrocious  _ face,” he purred.

“Snake-face. What are you doing here?” he asked, letting the sword dissolve.

“Same as you. Helping friends take back what was ours,” he replied.

“You too are on a rescue mission?” Roman asked. The rest of his light formations dissolved, too. 

“Why else would one come here? Unless they were captured, of course,” he replied.

“Do you have any idea where they are? Stars, I’ve been spending too much time with Logan,” Roman laughed. He hadn’t even made a reference to a musical or movie or called Dee a name. Snake-face didn’t count. 

“I think I do, below this cliff, in a cave, but I can’t figure out a way down,” Dee replied. 

“Well, the light seems to adore my iridescent personality. Hop aboard, my dear cobra,” he said, weaving a small boat out of light.

“Oh I’m  _ definitely  _ a cobra and not a bush viper naga,” he purred and slithered in, his fangs folding smoothly into his mouth. Roman laughed and flew along side the boat, guiding it along the cliffside until they came to a smooth ledge that led to a cave.

“I want to venture in the great wide somewhere!” Roman sang.

“Shh. We would  _ definitely  _ want to alert the captors to our presence. Roman smiled, stuck out his tongue at Dee, then walked beside him as they ventured forth.

 

The sound had been replaced by alarm bells clanging in his head. He had rebuilt his trusty raft, but now the ceiling approached. Was it possible to trap air in light? 

“I want to venture in the great wide somewhere!” 


	20. Stalactites and Stalagmites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We all knew the darkness couldn't last. It's fluff time. We'll see how much of it we have to wade through before I finally get to the rescue scene and end the story. Probably next chapter, or at least before chapter 25.

Logan turned over the problem of how this world worked and how he would find the others in his head. Patton was still unconscious, his eyelashes fluttering faintly every now and then, indicating he was in REM sleep, but he should have woken up by now if that were true. Even Patton wasn’t  _ that  _ deep of a sleeper.  _ How does the liquid rise and fall so quickly?  _ He asked himself as he walked. The liquid slowly eased over his fetlock to suck at his cannon bones, turning into a sticky, syrup-like substance. Logan frowned at it in frustration. It inched up his legs. He took a slow, dragging step.

“That’s it!” he whisper-yelled. The liquid drained away to lap sullenly at his ergots again. He took a step, the liquid had returned to a water-like frequency, “It responds to your emotions. Wait, if that’s true, would it reply to what you thought was possible, too?” he whispered. He shrugged, the worst that happened would be that it didn’t work and he had to keep walking. What was something fairly harmless that he could test it on? He glanced around for a second and his gaze eventually landed on the ice blue tip of his tie. He closed his eyes.  _ My tie is dark blue with black stripes.  _ He pictured how he wanted it to look.  _ My tie is dark blue with black stripes.  _ He opened his eyes and looked down. His tie was dark blue with black stripes. He grinned, not the small one he used to seem polite, an actual smile.  _ I can fly.  _ He stepped onto thin air.  _ Patton will wake up.  _ There was no change from his brother.  _ Well, I didn’t specify a time frame. Patton will wake up within the next 30 seconds.  _ He floated along as he waited for him to wake up.  _ Hm. Maybe this place doesn’t work with time. Still, I have more advantages now. Roman usually has ideas. Usually not good ideas, but it’s better to have more viewpoints on things, I suppose. Anx has more reasonable views on them. Besides the fact that he’s probably more affected by this if it indeed works off of emotion. Alright, Anx first. I can find Anx. _

 

Patton could feel himself getting carried. He knew he should probably wake up and see where they were going, but the rhythm of the stride of whoever was carrying him was soothing, and he didn’t exactly think he would be carried this gently if he was getting kidnapped. He shifted so that he was in a more comfortable position. He opened his eyes a crack, but only was darkness. He let his eyes close again.  _ Purr, purr,  _ he thought with a tiny, silent giggle.

 

“It’s a wonderfully well thought out plan, Roman,” Dee hissed as he circled around a stalactite to face Roman.

“Well, it’s _ completely _ fair that you can walk on the ceiling and I can’t,” he huffed back, leaning against a stalagmite.

“Oh, of course I can walk. It’s also amazing for stalagmite growth to touch them,” he replied with a glare.

“You know what I meant. I don’t suppose you have a better plan to rescue them,” he huffed and took his hand off of the stalagmite. Dee opened his mouth, then snapped it shut in annoyance and slithered off down the tunnel. Roman grinned triumphantly and followed him, slashing away the shadows with his sword. 

 

Anx could hear yelling from down the hallway, Roman and Deceit. He hated that snake-face. Sure he acted all nice, but what nice person lied every single time they spoke?  _ Give him some credit, he told the truth twice.  _ Anx rolled his eyes. He had more important things to worry about. Like the fact that his head was submerged. His head was submerged?  _ Focus, Anxious,  _ he growled to himself. He turned his legs into a fish tail again and swam through the tunnels towards the voices, only the darkness pressed further down on him. He couldn’t breathe because his head wasn’t above water and he wouldn’t dare try to shift gills in freshwater, let alone this stuff. Roman would dare to shift gills in his stuff. He needed to go faster. His head hurt and his lungs were threatening to burst. He let out a tiny huff of breath, and it quieted his lungs for about two seconds before they were demanding he let out the rest and take a breath. Dots swam. The darkness swam.  _ Focus, air, let out another tiny bit. Wait, dolphins can survive for a long time without air, right? I must look pretty stupid but at least it’s working for now. _

 

Roman slapped his hands over his ears as Deceit screamed from around a bend in the track.

“What is troubling you so, dear maiden?” he asked lightly, rounding the corner. Deceit was clinging tightly to a stalactite and poking an unholy amalgamation of a human, fish, and dolphin with his tail. He laughed and batted Deciet’s tail away.

“Wake up, my chemically imbalanced romance,” he said, clearing the black goop away from his blowhole. It immediately opened and spurted out goop. Anx flickered back and forth between his human form and the chimera form, alternatively coughing and spurting out black goop from his blowhole, until he curled into a little shivering ball on the floor. Roman waited for a few seconds to see if he would move, “Come on, brother mine.”

“Mm. Couple more months? Like, just wake me up when September ends?” he mumbled.

“It seems the evil goop lord has put poor Anx under a curse! Perhaps true love’s kiss will break it,” he stage whispered and leaned over to drop a kiss on his brother’s forehead.

“By the stars, Roman,” Anx grumbled and slapped blindly at Roman.

“Perhaps true love’s kiss will really wake this sleeping beauty,” a new voice said evenly. Roman turned around and saw Logan standing in the entrance holding a sleeping Patton to his chest, "Of course, that doesn't really exist, but that's a discussion for another time."

“How did you even fit your antlers in here?” he said, ignoring the way his heart threatened to leap out of his chest at the sight of Patton being so cute and the way it ranged at his denouncement of true love.

“It was simple,” Logan replied and easily pulled off one of his antlers. Deceit let out more screeching from where he was still wrapped tightly around the stalactite. Logan frowned at him, “That’s not good for stalactite growth.”


	21. Boats

“You made it look so easy,” Roman complained, tugging on the antler Logan had popped on and off again as a demonstration, “Do you have to decide to take it off?”  
“Sort of, if you’d stop that I could explain,” he replied, trying to keep his annoyance out of his voice, “Besides, don’t we have more pressing issues here?”

“But isn’t knowledge power?” he whined, redoubling his efforts.

“I could explain if you’d stop. You aren’t going to get anywhere with that; deer antlers are stronger than bones,” he replied, less successfully keeping the annoyance out of his voice as he shook his head in a small attempt to dislodge Roman. He finally fell back, pouting.

“Hello, Naga,” Logan redirected his attention from Roman to Dee, who was still clinging to the stalactite. 

“Hello, Centaur,” he sneered back, having regained his composure.

“Deer, actually,” he corrected. Dee gave a tiny nod but declined to answer aloud. 

“Hey, Microsoft Nerd, mind turning around so I can revive our fair friend?” Roman chriped. Logan rolled his eyes but turned around to face Roman, who leaned in for a kiss. Patton’s eyes immediately opened as he kissed Roman back.

“Excellent, now do you mind getting out of my arms?” Logan said. Patton giggled.

“You’re good at carrying me.”

“Were you awake the entire time?”

“No, I just remember trying to swim, but I couldn’t and when I woke up I was being carried.”

“I’m tempted to drop you right now,” Logan deadpanned. Patton let out a squeak of fear and pushed himself out of his brother’s arms.

“I thought I said wake me up when September ends not wake me up in under a minute,” Anx grumbled.

“Then we are all here, excellent. We should be leaving, then.”

“Hey! You said you’d explain how you took off your antlers,” Roman protested.

“Right. This dimension responds to your emotions and beliefs. It’s like a dream. Why did you think the Naga could climb on the roof?”

“I dunno, weird Naga ability? Not like we learn about it.”

“We do learn about it, he just never pays attention,” Anx quipped and slowly climbed to his feet, “So, we’re all having a joint lucid dream.” The walls crumbled around them. Dee dropped to the ground.

“I’m building the boat,” Roman murmured as he concentrated on something.  _ It probably works the same way shifting does, _ he watched as the darkness slowly manifested into a boat.

“Hm. I was expecting something more Little Mermaid style,” Anx commented as he poked the logs that were now under his feet.

“We’re exploring the unknown, much more Moana like. What happened to sleeping for months?”

“I’ll do that once we’re out of this place. Hey, where’d Dee go?” he smirked in return as an imaginary breeze blowed past his hair. 

“The naga just jumped off of the boat,” Logan replied, his eyes trained on something in the distance. The boat suddenly surged beneath their feet and sailed towards whatever he had been focusing on.

“Who made the light?” Patton asked from where he was watching the “water.”

“I made the boat.”

“I just broke that cliff to bits.”

“The only thing I’ve done is navigate. If Patton hasn’t done it, that leaves the Naga, someone else here, or it being a natural feature of this dimension,” Logan peered over the edge. There was a single bobbing yellow light following them. The boat lifted off the water and flew, gaining momentum. The light kept pace bellow.

“Shouldn’t we go get Dee?”

“He’s aware of how to manipulate this dimension. He was on the ceiling earlier and that cliff may have been his creation. If he wanted to he could catch up,” Logan replied,  _ And for some reason that voice seems familiar. It could just be my mind playing tricks on me, of course-no, not the time to debate philosophy with yourself. _

“Why wouldn’t he, then?”

“He’s waiting for something,” Logan and Anx said at the same time. The boat slowed and began to descend.


	22. Compass

The boat was sinking. The logs had disappeared. So Anx did the one thing he knew to do in this situation and bolted. He felt himself shift, but he didn’t know what he was, something that could fly. Or maybe he couldn’t and it was all just this messed up rescue mission. He shifted again and went skidding across something cold and rough before splashing into the cold depths of the “water” below.  _ WHY IS IT ALWAYS ME THAT HAS TO DEAL WITH THIS?  _ He screamed in his head, as he half shifted into a shark and poked his head up above the water. He stayed in place and stared into space while he caught his breath. When he finally turned back he was faced with… well, he didn’t know what he was faced with. There were a lot of different colored lights was about as much as he could decipher. He knew two things: he didn’t want to be there, and this world reacted to thoughts. He covered his ears and imagined being home. He didn’t care if he actually returned or went into a simulation of it by now.

The liquid was cold against his knees. Logan saw something fleeing the boat, which then changed forms and crashed. Anx, probably. Patton was standing behind him, and he could see Roman in his peripheral vision. His eyes followed the yellow light until he got a sense for the movement pattern. He made a box crash down on top of it, just long enough to account for all of the naga, if that was indeed who the light was. He felt a light push in his mind, not enough on its own, but when coupled with surprise and a lesser knowledge about this realm, the box gave and the naga erupted out of the water, growing in size as he did. Logan took a deep breath and formed a shield around himself, narrowing his eyes at his growing adversary. The naga had an upperhand of knowledge, but they outnumbered him, 4 to 1. 3 to 1 if Anx had just fled. Logan immediately slammed another box over his head, ready for the push this time. The pair was immediately engaged in a battle of wills. The box flickered between black and transparent so quickly it appeared to be a translucent grey. 

Roman rolled his eyes as Logan trapped Dee in a box.

“You know we could just talk to him. That’s always an option.”

“He doesn’t want to talk. Don’t distract me.”

“How do you know that?”

“Will yourself in, go ahead and try,” Logan muttered. Roman rolled his eyes and again, but willed himself in to see Dee curled up and crying.

“Dee?”

“Wha-Roman! Did he trap you here, too?” he asked without turning from the corner he was slumped into, his voice choppy and high.

“No, I came to come see you. I knew you couldn’t live without my charming personality for long,” Roman replied in a weak attempt to bring the mood up. Dee slowly twisted toward him, a tiny smile on his face. 

“Heh, you’re right. I don’t think I could live without seeing your pretty face everyday,” he said. That was what made Roman snap back into alertness.

“But we haven’t seen each other in a year.”  
“I know! I miss you so much during the rest of the year.”

“Present tense?

“I see you’re not rude at all,” his voice dropped an octave. 

“I know! I’m the epitome of greatness! Humble, kind, smart, handsome-”

“Completely and utterly straight.”

“Wha-Oh, right, you like to lie. Wait, does that mean you were calling me rude? I think you’re the rude one here.”

“Oh really? Are you sure it isn’t Logan? Or perhaps Patton?”

“Patton has done nothing to hurt you! He doesn’t even know you! He is on par, even surpassing, Disney! Disney, Dee! Disney! I simply cannot allow you to besmirch his good name!” Roman immediately blew up in his face, quite literally in fact. He grew to twice his size, and held his sword in a fighting stance. Dee took a similar stance, wielding nothing but his hands. Until yellow sparks jumped cheerfully from him straight towards Roman’s heart. Roman himself grinned, he had momentarily forgot he could make the rules here. A star blocked the electricity as Roman’s sword sheathed itself. 

“Do your worst.”

“Sadly.”

 

Patton had seen Roman go in to the box, and now multicolored lights flashed outside. Part of him wondered if they were having a disco party. The other part of him said Roman would come invite him if that was true. A third part of him worried if they were fighting. The sides of the box were steadily growing more opaque, and Patton watched as the lights dimmed.

“Patton?”

“What is it, Lo?”  
“Go find Anx. You and him find the rest of the village. Roman and I can handle the naga.”

“I think it would be much better if you just talked.”

“He would have come onto the boat if he wanted to talk.”

“Promise me you won’t hurt him?”

“I promise I will not hurt him unnecessarily.”

“Logan.”

“I cannot promise I won’t deal injuries restraining him. I promise not to dislocate any limbs, break any bones, or deal any other serious injury.”

“Ok. Be safe.”

“I know.”

“Just making sure. Anx!” Patton called off and headed towards where the boat had sunk. He had seen Anx’s head come up, although now he realized he probably should have kept a better eye on him, as he was now gone.  _ How didn’t I notice?  _

“You can create a compus to lead you to him!” Logan’s voice yelled out. Patton shot a thumbs up back at his brother and tried, but nothing happened. He tried it on Logan, and a big green arrow straight out of a video game appeared on top of the liquid, pointing him towards Logan. He tried it on his village, and the arrow spun around once before settling somewhere to his right.

“He’s gone!”

“What do you mean he’s gone?”

“I can’t find him!”

“Compus!”  
“I tried! I can find the village, but not Anx!”

“Then go find the rest of the village! He might have figured out how to leave this dimension.”

“Ok! Tell me if you find him!”

“I doubt I will find Anx, but I promise to tell you if I do,” Logan yelled back. Patton trotted after the arrow, worry for Anx tugging at his gut.


	23. Candle

It didn’t take long for Patton to build a magic carpet for himself and fly towards the village. When it stopped he peeked over the edge to find everyone in a loose clump talking in hushed voices. He grinned and leapt off the carpet, forming wings mid air. He landed lightly in front of them.

“Remy!” he yelled when a kid skidded to a stop in front of him.

“Did you boyfriend trap you here?”

“No, and I didn’t even tell you Roman became my boyfriend, how did you know?”

“Emile! I told you they were dating!”  
“And I told you you shouldn’t jump to conclusions! It’s one of the cognitis disportions!”

“And I told you it’s pronounced cognitive distortions!”

“And I told you it’s a term I coined, so it is pronounced cognitis disportions!”

“And I called you out on that lie!”

“Hi, Emile,” Patton stopped them before they went any further. Remy gently pushed his twin, who gently pushed him back.

“Hi, Patton! Do you know how to go back home? The adults aren’t telling us anything.”

“Which is code for they don’t know how to leave but don’t want us to know that.”

“Not quite yet, but Logan is here and he’s super smart. I’m sure we’ll find a way out soon.”

“Wait, who’s Logan? It’s not like you’ve introduced us before or anything.”

“Remy, come on. You know it’s not nice to use sarcasm.”

“And I told you I’m older than you.”

“By two minutes! Besides, just because someone is older doesn’t always mean they’re right.”

“Advice from a 10 year old.”

“A smart 10 year old!”  
“Who can’t pronounce cognitive distortions.”

“I told you! It’s my term!”

“Then say cognitive distortions.”

“Haagendauz dispersion.”

“That’s even farther away than cognitis disportions.”

“Remy, Emile, both of you be nice to each other. Do you know where Thomas is?”

“Probably in the middle of that clump of village leaders.”

“Thanks!”   
  


Logan had been watching the light show for at least a minute now. He had no way to measure time, as he suspected any watch would be thrown off because of the nature of the realm. He wished he could see what was in there but didn’t want to risk the integrity of the ecasement to satisfy his curiosity. He locked his knees and stretched out his torso. Then he was swept with another impulse: to feel what it was like to shift.  _ No, not now. Wait for Patton to come back. You’ll have plenty of time later,  _ he dismissed the urge. He crossed his arms and counted the flashes of light before him.

 

“Do you surrender, foul beast?” Roman had long since let his shift drop into his natural form. They faced each other, with Dee shrinking away from the fire crackling in Roman’s hands.

“You don’t want to kill me.”

“Of course not! Am I a monster to you? I am an angel!” he replied with his normal dramatics, as his wings turned white and a halo of fire formed around his head.

“Candle,” Dee whispered, and he was gone. 


	24. Blankets and Swordpoints

Patton landed next to Logan, sending up a splash of the black liquid. Logan started to wipe it off, but his hand paused in mid air and it disappeared.

“I presume this is everyone?”

“Except for Anx.”

“That is to be expected. While you were gone I did think of something to try.”

“To get out? What?”

“Simply attempting to wake up or willing yourself to a location outside of this realm.”

“I think if we were asleep at least some people would be awake by now.”

“Yes, but this dimension works similarly to lucid dreaming.”

“Well, let’s try.”

“Correction: you will try. I am otherwise engaged within this dimension.”

“Right. Do you think Roman is ok?”

“Yes. He said it was like shifting and he is certainly adept at shifting.”

“Keep an eye on him, ok?”

“I will try my best to ensure Roman is not hurt.” Logan rolled his eyes. Patton forced a bright smile at him, then willed himself onto the couch in Roman and Anx’s living room.

“Gah! How did you-Patton?” Patton found himself staring up at Anx on the floor.

“Guess I have to work on my landing, huh?” he chuckled and took Anx’s hand to stand up, “Did you do something? It looks weird.”

“Ha, we have a visible kitchen now where there used to be a wall of vines. Uh, what happened to R and L?”

“Roman is fighting Dee and Logan is keeping the fight in one area. Also I found the rest of the village.”

“So basically we’re waiting for news unless you want to raid Logan’s notes.”

“I don’t think you want to do that…”

“Figured. Uh, movie marathon?”

“What do you want to watch?”

“I dunno. We could also raid the game closet. It probably has something nostalgia-y in there. I don’t even remember the last time we cleaned it out,” Anx suggested, and in a few minutes Anx was erecting a blanket fort while Patton was cooing over a stack of games and dvds, going back and forth on which one to play or watch first.

 

Logan stared down the box. It was only him left. Everyone else had left to their regular realm. The lights had coalesced into one corner, and was staying put. Nothing was pushing against the edge of the box, but he was wary. If one of them surrendered, the other would logically want to escape. As much as he had put on a front of confidence to Patton, he wasn’t sure how well Deceit could fight. He let out a tiny sigh, then a burst of light filled his vision and he scrambled to hold together the box, which was weakening despite himself, then suddenly the resistance stopped and he fell over something that had suddenly appeared. He snapped his head up and saw… a fireplace? He got up and took in what he had tripped over. It was Roman. Magic burns ran down his arms, but he didn’t appear to be physically hurt in any other way. His colorful wings had been replaced with eagle wings, which suddenly rippled and were returned to their usual color, only to have a sword at his throat, held by a hand which suddenly held a tiny bit of fire.

“Prove you’re really Logan!” Roman yelled. Logan stumbled away from the threat, and Roman pressed forward with him.

“How would I prove that? I believe we’ve been transported back to the physical realm based on immediate observation, although I have yet to prove that true.”

“What’s the name of the game we played?”

“The Evil Within 2.”

“And the names of the people we played with?”  
“Patton and Anx.”

“Princey, let up. Patton, Logan and Roman are here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Slams the chapter down* I haven't abandoned this thing! Remember when I abandoned the upload schedule because I wrote too much and didn't want to forget where I had left off posting? Yeah, me neither.


	25. Questions and Snowballs

Logan tapped his pencil on the page. He hadn’t been able to return to the realm or send anything there, but the question on his mind was why. Patton and Roman were off doing something, and Anx was draped over the couch to his left.

“What great problem are you pondering now?”

“Why we can’t return.”

“Still? That was a month ago.”  
“Yes, still.”

“Maybe just so many people drained it?”

“I don’t think that’s the answer.”

“There hasn’t been snow since we returned. I mean, it’ll snow here soon, but it hasn’t been snowing over there, right?”

“Correct.”

“I don’t think it’s a problem.”

“I suppose not, but it is perplexing,” Logan replied and added Anx’s theory to his sheet, “Is Anx short for something?”

“What?”

“Anx isn’t a name I’ve heard used, I was wondering if it was short for something.”

“Anxiety.”

“Why would someone name their child ‘Anxiety?’”

“They didn’t. Kids named me it and I just adopted it.”

“That does not seem to be a harmless nickname.”  
“Eh. I didn’t like the name Virgil when I was young anyways, so it was a step up.”  
“Virgil? That is your given name?”

“Yup.”

“Hm. Would you like me to call you that.”

“Nah.”  
“Ok,” Logan replied and turned his head back to his work. Anx’s heart was pounding as he realized he had just told him his name. Wasn’t it supposed to be, like, a really tension filled moment? But it felt kind of like when he repeatedly declined Roman’s attempts to set him up with somebody. Seriously, just because he got his first kiss when he was eleven didn’t mean Anx wanted to kiss someone at twelve. Besides, who gets into any sort of romantic relationship at eleven? Roman and whatever that kid’s name was, apparently. He took a deep breath and went back to finding shapes on the ceiling.

“Logan! It’s snowing!” Patton screeched, throwing open the door, “Let’s go sledding!”

“I think more snow is needed for that, Patton,” Logan replied and added more writing to the page.

“You’ve been working for hours, let’s have some fun!” Roman announced and turned into a Samoyed pup, who Patton immediately picked up. Virgil was pretty sure the only reason Patton had any arm and upper body strength was so that he could pick up any animal. Logan knew that was true. A little bit of playful banter later, they were all outside. Roman was back in his ‘natural’ form and was pulling Patton around on a sled. Virgil was scooping up the muddy snow as it fell and throwing it at Roman, and Logan was carefully creating a fort for the snowball fight he strongly suspected would happen once one of Virgil’s snowballs hit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I left a lot of loose ends, but I really can't find a way to tie them up, so just have some fluff to finish this thing off.


End file.
